The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Thursday staged a walkout from the National Assembly (NA) over absence of ministers of petroleum and finance after Opposition Leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali’s announcement that the PML-N would not tolerate business as usual anymore.
Speaking on a point of order after former PML-N MNA Javed Hashmi’s speech, Nisar criticised the treasury benches for enjoying Hashmi’s resignation saying that like Hashmi, former foreign ministers Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Sardar Assef Ahmed Ali of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), who joined the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), should be given time for a speech in the house. He said that the masses were facing enormous troubles due to load shedding of gas and electricity but the petroleum minister was not present in the house to brief parliamentarians on the issue. “Either the petroleum minister be asked to find a solution for gas shortage or be sent home,” he said, adding that Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafiz Sheikh was not attending the NA session since long. Federal Religious Affairs Minister Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah endorsed Nisar’s criticism on absence of ministers saying that ministers should be present in the house, as they were answerable to parliament. Nisar said, “The finance minister should brief the house on the present economic condition of the country. There were reports in the media that the government printed Rs 78 billion currency notes last month. The finance minister should take the house into confidence over these reports.” The opposition leader criticised the petroleum minister’s statement of closing CNG stations in January to tackle the gas shortage. “Why did the government not focus on the issue in the last four years,” he questioned.
He said that the PML-N would not tolerate if the federal government continued to run the house as routine. “Today, we are going on a silent protest but from tomorrow we will lodge a strong protest in the house and block its routine business,” he added. Responding to Nisar’s point of order, Khurshid said that PML-N MNA Rana Tanveer had himself floated the suggestion of closing CNG stations for a month in the NA Standing Committee on Petroleum. “Our government discovered 250 million cubic feet natural gas in Sindh but the project was stayed by courts for three years,” he said.