MPAs ask govt to protect minerals

LAHORE
The opposition in Punjab Assembly on Friday demanded the PML-N government to ensure that the country’s mineral reserves were not hijacked as in the case of Reko Diq gold and copper project in Balochistan.
Expressing their concerns, the opposition MPAs said multinational companies in the past had earn kickbacks from mineral exploration and sent the lucrative money abroad due to the oversight of past governments.
These remarks were made by JI MPA Dr Syed Waseem Akhtar and PPP MPA Sardar Shahabuddin in response to Punjab Minister for Mines and Minerals Sher Ali Khan. The minister had briefed the House on the groundbreaking exploration of copper and iron ore deposits in Chiniot under the leadership of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
The Punjab Assembly on Friday reassembled with 16 MPAs present and only one person on the opposition bench. For the sixth consecutive time this week, quorum was identified two times on Friday and the session was later adjourned till Monday (3pm) due to the failure to reach the required number needed for a sitting.
During question hour, the food, commerce, and investment department came under House scrutiny. Replying to the concerns over the selling of sick and dead animal meat, Food Minister Bilal Yasin said it was under the ambit of the Livestock Department and the Punjab Food Authority (PFA) as per the Pure Food Ordinance was only concerned with testing the final cooked product in eateries and markets in Lahore.
It is pertinent to note that while the authority has plans to expand its operation to other cities, including Multan and Rawalpindi, it is currently only functioning in the provincial metropolis.
After numerating the successes of the PFA, Bilal admitted that unhygienic animal meat was a deadly phenomenon with 9,000 samples out of a total of 13,800 tested positive last year.
Not satisfied with the punishment for selling sick and dead animal meat, which are maximum one-year imprisonment and a fine of 0.2 million rupees, Dr Waseem said it was insufficient to deter those sellers guilty of malpractice. On this, the acting speaker directed Bilal to take this into consideration.
Again shedding light on lack of development in Bahawalpur district, the JI MPA criticised Commerce and Investment Minister Chaudhry Shafique and his department for not setting up major industrial units and technical institutes for skilled labour in the region. Shafique justified this relative disparity with other districts, stating that a survey was conducted in all the districts and units were established, if there was a need.
The JI MPA, however, was not satisfied with the explanation and demanded that south Punjab should no longer be ignored in development plans of the government. He also asked the acting speaker to call for a meeting of the committee constituted on the Kalabagh Dam project.
Later in the session, a hilarious debate ensued between Shafique and PML-N MPA Mian Tariq Mehmood over the population of two cities - Dina and Kharian - in Gujrat district. The PML-N MPA had criticised the government for not conducting a population census since 1998, and thus denying many settlements with a huge populace of much-needed development schemes.
Shafique later also faced embarrassment when PML-Q MPA Sardar Waqas Hassan Mokal reminded him that the NOCs for factories in Punjab required establishment of water treatment plants.
Meanwhile, PPP MPA Sardar Shahabuddin from Layyah criticized Bilal for failing to ensure that sugar mills owners in his constituency contributed to the sugar cess fund, which is used to develop infrastructure in the south Punjab district.