Fouty-five minutes Sindh Assembly session adjourned amid uproar
Pakistan Times Sindh Bureau Report

KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly session on Friday morning could last only 45 minutes after Speaker Muzaffar Hussain Shah opted not to relax rules and allow an adjournment motion from opposition benches for the proceedings adjourning the session to Monday morning.

Opposition leader of the House Nisar Ahmed Khoro, on a point of order, tabled an out of turn adjournment motion under rule 21 of the Sindh Assembly rules pointing out to political crisis in Sindh due to sacking of Imtiaz Sheikh and counter allegations by the sacked minister against the provincial chief executive.

Provincial Law Minister Chaudhry Iftikhar Ahmed, representing the treasury benches, said there was no political crisis in the assembly or the province as the sacking of ruling party minister was within the purview of Chief Minister’s authority and within the norms of party discipline. If there were resignations of ministers or members en bloc then it would have been termed as real crisis in the parliament, he explained.

The session was marred by slogans of thieves and shame when it was pointed out that there were allegations and counter allegations of corruption against Imtiaz Sheikh and the Chief Minister, which has shaken up the assembly and hurt sanctity of the parliament. The Speaker then warned the opposition benches to refrain from creating chaos in the House and said the current assembly session was requisitioned by the opposition and all the more they should be careful about the proceedings by maintaining discipline.

Nisar Khoro’s contention was that the allegations of corruption was a serious issue and the speaker was requested to admit the adjournment motion on relaxing the rules which the speaker did not allow as he refused to use speaker’s powers to do so.

Commenting on the situation the Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim said there is complete provincial autonomy in Sindh. “I have the confidence of the House and enjoy confidence of the members who have elected me as the chief executive. I have the powers to take decisions, which are in the direction of good governance. I am sure all my decisions are being supported by representatives in the parliament as there was no commotion or unrest from the treasury benches in today’s session, therefore, it was totally wrong to say that there was a political crisis in Sindh,” he remarked.

He blamed the opposition for the confusion in the House as they had the intention of creating problems in the parliamentary affairs in the hope to enter into corridors of power from the backdoor. He indicated that the general elections will probably be held in 2008 and if representatives of the opposition parties get people’s mandate “I will be the first one to welcome them in the parliament”.

Talking to reporters in his assembly chambers, the Chief Minister said that his decision to sack Imtiaz Sheikh on grounds of corruption was endorsed by President Pervez Musharraf during his interaction with media on Thursday night stating that it was the authority of the Chief Minister to do so.

“I have set the tradition of sacking the Revenue Minister to uphold accountability process which is being implemented to weed out corruption from the society,” he asserted.

By the proceedings it appeared that the arrest of Imtiaz Sheikh is on the card as the Chief Minister was collecting more evidence of corruption in Revenue Department and handing it over to the Prime Minister’s inspection team headed by Maj Gen Farooq Khan. The team is working overtime for collecting details of the entire situation, which has now been resulted in the arrest of many officers of Revenue Department.

“Once the linkage is established and since the minister in question was heading the department concerned, it is obvious that lopsided decisions would have come after his approval,” Dr Arbab pointed out. He justified sacking by saying that he could not do it unless there was concrete evidence of corruption available.

The Chief Minister emphasized that implementation of accountability process continues under President General Pervez Musharraf and now it has come with a big hammer on persons within the party or administration of ruling party. Quoting examples, he said a NAB officer was recently arrested, the Registrar of Supreme Court was dismissed on corruption charges and now the Secretary of National Assembly faces suspension for being corrupt.

Arbab said nobody will be allowed to remain in power with corrupt practices and added that he will not allow corruption in Sindh. The Chief Minister said he would, face the consequences even if had to put the post of chief executive at stake or even face death threats.

He said such an action within the government had been ignored by ruling parties in the past, thinking that dismissing a minister could pose serious political problems and undermine integrity of the rulers or face all sorts of allegations. “But I think it is a ‘Jihad’ against evil which should be challenged by action, by word and opposing from the core of one’s heart and my actions will pursue exposing of evil in governance,” he assured.

He said, while taking the stern action against corrupt he enjoyed confidence of the party leadership that included President Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, PML President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Pir Saheb Pigaro, MQM’s chief Altaf Hussain whose party is the largest in the coalition, Sindh government, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi and Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari. “The sacking of Imtiaz Sheikh was a party decision and had the blessing of the President and the Prime Minister,” he added.

The opposition in turn was accused of raising a storm in a cup of tea as when they were in power they never took such decisions against their own corrupt ministers. “If I have taken a brave step to clean the society of corruption, it should have been openly appreciated by the opposition,” he added.

Clarifying his position regarding allotment of plots through Land Utilization Department, the Chief Minister said since there was a ban on allotments only four plots were allotted under special consideration and after approval from the federal government and the cabinet as they came under the purview of country’s policy.

These included a plot allotted to international company Nestle under international investment policy and that was before he took charge of CM and after that WAPDA was given a plot of land for setting up a grid station, some land was given to Industries Department on government-to-government basis for further distribution-for setting up industrial units and one to PTCL for setting up a telephone exchange.●