- KP Assembly’s female lawmakers walk out from House over non-availability of funds
- PTI MPA tells PPP’s Nighat that female parliamentarians had never been given funds
Opposition benches in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly session chaired by Deputy Speaker Imtiaz Shahid on Tuesday staged a walkout against non-availability of funds to female parliamentarians.
The provincial assembly witnessed a heated debate when speaking on a point of order Advisor to Chief Minister on Higher Education Mushtaq Ghani taunted that PPP MPA Nighat Orakzai raised issue of female student’s harassment in Peshawar University by teachers but did not attend the committee meeting constituted to resolve the issue. He questioned as to why Orakzai raised the issue if she was not interested in participating in committee’s meeting.
Ghani’s comments enraged Orakzai who said that all the meetings were not attended because of non-availability of funds to female parliamentarians of opposition benches.
She said that women were being ignored in the case of provision of funds while Minister for Information Shah Farman had announced Rs 10 million each for male parliamentarians for public health sector.
Upon this, Shah Farman clarified that no member had a right to get any sort of amount. “I used my discretionary powers in allocation of funds to male parliamentarians. Neither there is a law nor any legislation regarding granting of funds to female parliamentarians.”
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Qalandar Lodhi questioned the rationale of hue and cry made by female parliamentarians when there was no history of provision of funds to female parliamentarians.
In protest, Orakzai walked out from the assembly session.
When she started to walk out for the third time after hearing Lodhi’s comments, all the opposition female parliamentarians present in the house supported her stance and staged a walk out. The protest was later joined by male opposition members as well.
The deputy speaker adjourned the assembly session till Wednesday.