50 PMLN MPAs submit privilege motion against health secretary

LAHORE:The tussle between Punjab bureaucracy and ruling party MPAs has intensified as nearly one fourth of the PMLN Parliamentary party in Punjab has submitted a privilege motion against the 'power drunk' Punjab Health Secretary Ali Jan. The privilege motion signed by nearly 50 MPAs of PMLN from different districts of Punjab (not from Lahore interestingly) was submitted in the Punjab Assembly Secretariat that described Secretary Ali Jan as a 'power drunk' official who humiliated the people’s representatives.

This is noteworthy that amongst the signatories of the privilege motion, Ahmad Iqbal, son of Federal Minister Ahsan Iqbal's name, can also be seen who is an MPA elected from PP 54, Narowal. Mian Amjed Ali Javaid, Mian Saqib Khurshid and Rao Kashif Raheem Khan are amongst the top signatures.

Total strength of PMLN in Punjab Assembly is 205 and 50 MPAs out of this strength have united against an official which was publicly praised by their own chief minister a few months ago. The privilege motion submitted that Secretary Health Ali Jan has humiliated a public-friendly decision taken by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz who appointed elected representatives as coordinators to visit hospitals and sensitize the CM office about public complaints in the government run medical institutions so that people's grievances could be redressed.

The privilege motion submitted that Secretary Health Ali Jan degraded this public-friendly initiative and issued orders for setting up records of elected representatives with a motive to scare them of NAB and Anti Corruption action against them in future.

The motion submitted that in the presence of Health Minister Khawaja Salman Rafique, the secretary directed his subordinates not to act upon any recommendation of MPAs and maintain a record of these recommendations that could be 'used' against them when needed.

"This has breached the privilege of the House and I request that this matter be handed over to the privilege committee' said the privilege motion signed by 50 MPAs of the House. This is pertinent to mention that already the members of the Punjab Assembly including the ruling party MPAs have time and again raised complaints about the objectionable attitude of bureaucracy towards them. On most of the occasions during the House proceedings, bureaucracy has been slammed by MPAs for not turning up to the session to answer the queries related to their departments during question hour.

On number of occasions, speaker and deputy speaker have even warned bureaucracy to mend their ways and respected the House. Talking to The News, Health Minister Khawaja Salman Rafique stated he was out of country but hoped things would be okay very soon.