PTI lawmakers boycott Sindh Assembly proceedings to protest against ban on eight MPAs

The lawmakers of the largest opposition party in the Sindh Assembly, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), on Friday continued their boycott of the proceedings of the assembly session in protest against the speaker’s decision to bar eight legislators of the party from attending the session.

The leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly, Haleem Adil Sheikh, said the PTI MPAs had boycotted the session to protest against suspension of the eight MPAs of the party. The eight PTI lawmakers, including parliamentary leader of the PTI in the House Bilal Ahmed Ghaffar, were suspended from the current session of the provincial legislature owing to their unruly conduct last Monday when they had brought a charpoy in the assembly as a mock coffin of democracy.

The opposition leader said the lawmakers of his party would not attend the assembly till the ban on the eight legislators was in place. Instead of entering the assembly hall, the PTI lawmakers sat on stairs of the Sindh Assembly building to register their protest. They sloganeered against the Sindh government of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) for, what they said, using dictatorial means to rule in the province.

House proceedings

Meanwhile, during proceedings of the session, Sindh Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla noted that there was much peace in the House. Opposition legislator of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan Rana Ansar also observed that the parliamentary affairs minister had got the chance to conveniently respond to the queries of the legislators.

Sindh Minister for Minority Affairs Hari Ram Kishori Lal assured the House that merit, and rules and regulations would be fully observed whenever the Sindh government advertised to recruit people of religious minorities for its different departments.

He informed the assembly during the question hour that people belonging to religious minorities had been recruited in different departments of the Sindh government. He said the provincial government would make sure that the quota for minorities was duly ensured whenever the provincial government’s job vacancies were advertised.

He said the quota for religious minorities would also be ensured in the recruitment of teachers for the government-run schools in the province through a recruitment test conducted by the Sukkur Institute of Business Administration.

Sindh Energy Minister Imtiaz Ahmed Shaikh said the people in the province had to face massive curtailment in gas and power supply since the time the present federal government had come to power.

Responding to a call-attention notice of Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) MPA Nand Kumar Goklani, the energy minister said power and gas consumers had been facing such a situation due to inefficiency of the federal government.

He said the domestic and industrial consumers in the province had been facing acute hardships due to gas shortfall. The industries had been facing challenges to complete their export orders due to gas crisis, he added. He said the gas consumers in the province had been facing severe problems despite the fact that Sindh accounted for 64 per cent natural gas produced in the country.

Social security law

Meanwhile, the House unanimously adopted the Sindh Employees’ Social Security Institution (Amendment) Bill 2021.

Speaking on the bill, the parliamentary affairs minister said it was aimed at the universalisation of the social security for all the labourers in the province associated with both

the formal and informal sectors.

These labourers would now be issued the Benazir Mazdoor Card to extend them the benefits of the social security scheme, he said, adding that the card would provide a lot of benefits to the workers related to marriage, education, health, and upbringing of children.