ISLAMABAD: A chronic ministerial absenteeism in parliament ruffled some feathers in the National Assembly on Thursday amid suspense over expected changes in the cabinet, with the deputy speaker conveying an open rage to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Thin attendance of ministers has been usual in both houses of parliament, but complaints about it have been more pronounced during their current sessions when the issue of a drastic reshuffle of the prime minister’s nearly three-year-old cabinet, or its dissolution to be replaced by a new one, has been a hot political topic in the country.

And the problem became acute in the National Assembly when it blocked the entire legislative business set for Thursday, a day before the scheduled prorogation of the second winter session of the house.

“Where are the ministers concerned?” Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi, chairing the proceedings at the time, inquired from the treasury benches in a mild expression of his displeasure when three government bills on the agenda could not be introduced owing to the absence of Education Minister Aseff Ahmad Ali and Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Babar Awan.

But after a while, it was a ringing reprimand from the chair during a controversy over the only government bill taken up for consideration when Mr Kundi asked the prime minister, who was present in the house, to take notice of what he said was “really a problem”. He particularly named Mr Awan who, he said, had come to the house only once during its current session that began on Jan 24.

Mr Gilani did not immediately respond to Mr Kundi’s anger at a time when Mr Awan’s advice was needed over an opposition objection to the bill seeking an amendment to a 1972 decree for the abolition of privy purses and privileges of the rulers of former princely states.

After the bill was deferred for a review by government and opposition representatives, Mr Awan came to the house, went to the deputy speaker on the dais along with PML-N lawmaker Zahid Hamid, who had raised an objection to the bill, and then to the prime minister’s desk, probably to explain the cause of his absence.

Ministers’ absence from one house or the other has often been blamed by the government on simultaneous sittings of the two houses of parliament – as had happened on Thursday – for the past some days, when they could miss one house while attending to their business in the other.

It was not clear if the intensity of the recent complaints, which included demands from some opposition members for a change of portfolios of the erring ministers, was motivated by a frustration with the tendency or was a case of disguised gunning for some to settle other scores.

The Rulers of Acceding States (Abolition of Privy Purses and Privileges) (Amendment) Bill had been passed earlier by the house to empower the federal government to increase the maintenance allowances of former state rulers, who Minister of State for Frontier Regions Najmuddin Khan said were facing financial problems due to their present low entitlements.

But the Senate passed the bill later with an amendment giving that power instead to parliament, which PML-N’s Zahid Hamid said already had that power, suggesting that the government better withdraw the bill.

The deputy speaker called Mr Hamid’s point logical and deferred the bill after PPP’s Minister of State for Railways Mohammad Afzal Sandhu, a legal expert, described the situation resulting from the Senate amendment as “ridiculous” and asked the two sides to sit with the law minister to resolve it.

A MORALISING HASHMI: Before being adjourned until 10am on Friday, the house also heard and cheered, across party lines, a moralising sermon from senior PML-N figure Javed Hashmi who, after a long absence due to a paralysis attack, even had an apparent dig at his own party’s leadership along with others for their perceived businesses abroad and urged them not to ignore developments around the world like the present uprising in Egypt.

He called himself a “baghi apnon ka bhi, beganon ka bhi” (a rebel to my own people and to strangers) and asked members of the house to “become rebels to their leadership within their parties” in people’s interest.

In what seemed a reference to PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif’s family business in Saudi Arabia, Mr Hashmi said Pakistani leaders’ might have legitimate “foreign businesses” in places like Dubai, Jeddah and Spain, and then asked: “But who has stakes here (in the country)?”
Source: Dawn
Date:2/4/2011