The reconciliation-driven Sindh Assembly was a pandemonium on Friday when the arguing coalition partners from the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) hurled full-throated unpleasantries against each other.
The harsh, verbal showdown was sparked as usual by PML-F’s outspoken Marvi Rashdi who held Senior Sindh Education & Literacy Minister Pir Mazharul Haq accountable for the out-of-turn promotion of Haq’s “teacher wife” to, what Rashdi claimed, cadre post of an additional secretary.
“The cadre has been changed to promote the minister’s wife. It is unjust and condemnable,” the lawmaker claimed.
Moreover, flanked by fellow party member Nusrat Seher Abbasi, Rashdi told a post-session briefing that Sindh Law Minister Ayaz Soomro does not know “the ABCs of law” because, she said, no word on the legal aspects of the Supreme Court’s verdict against Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani had come from him.
“Coalition! Coalition! Coalition! Enough is enough!” was Soomro’s in-session outburst against Rashdi that attracted the latter’s ire. Having previously faced off with Sindh Information Minister Shazia Marri, the PML-F lawmaker engaged this time Sindh Finance Minister Murad Ali Shah whose response to Rashdi’s allegations against the education minister eventuated into a verbal clash.
“Please keep quite!” Shah shouted at her who was on her feet to return the same words in the similar ear-splitting tone. “Don’t think I’m like the female members of your party,” she said.
“Thank God you are not in my party or I would have expelled you on the very first day,” replied the finance minister backed by Marri. “She should go and learn to behave herself,” Shah was heard amid the noisy argument.
He countered Rashdi’s accusations by saying that the post filled was not that of a cadre, and even if it was, being a relative of a minister or a member of the provincial assembly was not a disqualification in itself.
“Coalition does not mean that we would put a finger on our lips no matter what they do,” PML-F’s Abbasi and Rashdi later told the media while condemning the “insulting attitude of PPP ministers”.
They said that the quality of education in the province had dropped ever since the education minister promoted his “teacher wife” to the post of an additional secretary.
In response to a question about the law minister, Rashdi said, “He does not even know the ABCs of law, so he does not deserve my comments.”
Abbasi said that the PPP – not Pir Pagara – had come up with the offer of a coalition. “But this does not mean that we have signed some accord to remain silent,” she added.
The PML-F lawmakers also questioned the removal of “the competent Naheed Shah”, the daughter of Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, from the same post now filled by Education Minister Haq’s spouse.
“She was removed because she was unmasking the black sheep within the education department,” they claimed.
Responding to the allegations, Information Minister Marri reiterated the finance minister’s contention, saying that the slot in question had no cadre, and that it was previously filled by officials of “the associate professor level”.
Law amended for benevolent payments to women
KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly on Friday amended the relevant laws to facilitate the female beneficiaries of the benevolent fund. Also heard in the 168-member house were condemnations against the Supreme Court’s verdict in Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s contempt-of-court case, with Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) lawmakers blaming the establishment, the clergy and the courts for conspiring against their party one after the other. Saleem Khursheed Khokhar moved a privilege motion against the Clifton police who, the minority lawmaker claimed, had so far taken no action to unmask those who had sent him a threatening text message on April 18, when he was accompanying three Hindu girls to the apex court in the forced conversion case. The provincial legislature, which was chaired by Speaker Nisar Khuhro, unanimously passed the Sindh Government Servants Benevolent Fund (Amendment) Bill-2012 into law. The legislation would make it easier for, as the Statement of Objects and Reasons reads, widows and elderly women to access officials in their respective districts to receive the benevolent fund. The amendment, Sindh Law Minister Ayaz Soomro and Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Shoaib Bukhari said, would rid the fund’s beneficiaries of running to and from the respective divisional offices to receive their payments. The judiciary came under fire again in the house when PPP lawmaker Imdad Patafi, on a point of order, blasted the courts for their alleged failure in taking up cases against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leaders or deciding the ones filed by Asghar Khan. The house deferred the referral of a privilege and an adjournment motion of Khursheed Khokhar to the concerned standing committee until Monday when the law minister would be finding out the facts. “I feel that my family and I are not safe owing to my support to minorities,” Khokhar told the house where legislators like Sindh Information Minister Shazia Marri disagreed with the impression that minorities in Pakistan were not safe. Marri, however, took the floor to condemn the threatening text messages received by her fellow party member of the Christian faith. The question hour dealt with the Sindh Prisons Department, during which Law Minister Soomro, who also has the jails portfolio, responded to supplementary questions of the members. Minutes before the speaker adjourned the house until 9:00 am on Monday, Nusrat Seher Abbasi of the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional called upon the prime minister to take notice of Kiran Soomro, a heart patient without any money to receive treatment. ISMAIL DILAWAR
