Sindh Assembly passes only one private bill during last five years

KARACHI: Only one private bill was passed by the present house of the Sindh Assembly during its entire five-year tenure that is going to end in a fortnight. 

The incumbent house of the provincial legislature whose tenure would expire on August 13, 2023, is also unique in the sense that its standing committees functioned without the membership of the legislators belonging to the three main Opposition political parties. The main Opposition parties in the Sindh Assembly-the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Muttahida Quami Movement Pakistan, and Grand Democratic-soon after the 2018 general elections opted not to become members of the standing committees.

The decision was taken after the main Opposition party, the PTI, demanded that the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Sindh Assembly. They had referred to the practice in the National Assembly where the Leader of the Opposition gets the position in the house in accordance with the spirit of the Charter of Democracy (CoD). The ruling Pakistan People’s Party refused to accept this demand with the suggestion that the PTI should first become a signatory to the CoD for becoming eligible for the coveted position of the PAC chairman. Apart from this, an Opposition lawmaker of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, Syed Abdul Rasheed, headed the Standing Committee on Works and Services while MPA Muhammad Qasim Fakhri of Opposition Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan remained chairman of the standing committees on Auqaf, Religious Affairs, Zakat, and Ushr.

“The situation has been so dismal that many of the Opposition MPAs who became legislators for the first time after the 2018 polls don’t have an idea about the utility and functioning of the standing committees,” said Rana Ansar the newly appointed Opposition Leader in the Sindh Assembly. It is also a coincidence that the only private bill passed by the house during the past five years was also drafted by Ansar who belongs to MQM. Her bill “The Sindh Water Management (Amendment) Act-2018” was passed by the house on 12th January 2021 and assented to by the then Sindh governor on 4th February 2021. The bill stands for due representation of the local women on different committees and boards overseeing affairs related to the distribution of water for the farmlands.

Ansar said that later the rules of business of her amendment bill were framed while its implementation started in a gradual phase. The Opposition Leader said that she had drafted the bill keeping in view the sizable participation of women in the agriculture sector and their participation in farming activities like kitchen gardening. She lamented that another 118 private bills drafted by different lawmakers including herself had been pending approval. Her other major success in the provincial legislature was that a number of amendments to different government bills moved in the assembly were passed by the house.

She said that while scores of private bills remained pending during the last five years the government-proposed legislations were being hurriedly adopted in the last session of the house without any due consideration or referring them to the relevant standing committee for any review. Ansar said that though only a few days were remaining before the dissolution of the provincial assembly, she would try her best that Opposition lawmakers could actively take part in the proceedings of the remaining part of the last session of the house.

Ansar is the third Opposition Leader in the same house of the Sindh Assembly. Earlier, Firdous Shamim Naqvi and Haleem Adil Sheikh of the PTI held the coveted position in the house. The Sindh Assembly during the last five years conducted 35 sessions and held proceedings for over 500 days. The PTI’s legislators did not attend the session of the house after ‘May 9’ violent incidents following the arrest of former prime minister Imran Khan. The house during its entire tenure adopted over 135 government bills and passed 71 resolutions on different issues. The assembly also held a discussion on 12 different adjournment motions during this period.