The much awaited National Assembly session that called on Monday after interval of almost three months, has been adjourned once again due to incomplete quorum.
It was expected that the session would cause an effort to lower down political temperatures in the country. However, it could not practice as the quorum remained incomplete after questions and answers session.
This government-opposition meeting was scheduled to take place at 4 o’clock but started with an hour’s delay. After the question and answers, the prayer break was announced by Speaker Asad Qaiser. As the sitting resumed, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) MNA Syed Imran Shah pointed towards lack of quorum. The quorum remained unfulfilled even after a wait for one and a half hour, due to which the speaker announced the adjournment of the session until today (Tuesday).
The opposition members were apparently recording their protest during the session as they were holding placards inscribed with slogans against PTI foreign funding.
As Opposition Leader Shehbaz Sharif, PPP leader Khursheed Shah and PML-N leader Khawaja Asif were in NAB custody and have not been produced in session, their pictures were placed at the respective chairs by the opposition members.
Minister for communication Murad Saeed in response to a question by Shahida Rehmani of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), said that to make the motorways safe for travelers. “The number of patrolling vehicles has been increased in dark hours,” he said.
He claimed that anti-crime squads have been deployed at crime-infested areas in dark hours along with necessary equipment, including arms and ammunitions, to check the verge, underpasses and flyovers on the motorways.
Moreover, the minister added, in order to ensure effective patrolling of field formation in dark hours, supervisory patrolling is carried out by designated officers.
Snap checking of suspected vehicles is also being randomly carried out, especially at night hours, Saeed reaffirmed.
In response to another question by Shazia Sobia Aslam parliamentary secretary for national food security and research Ameer Sultan inform the house that no significant loss to agriculture crops reported by any provincial government due to locust attack so far. He confessed that some partial damages to few crops were reported by farmers through the NLCC in few districts.
While explaining the preseasons for spread of locust, the lawmakers said the locust was a global phenomenon resulting due to climate change that brought cyclones in Indian occasions during 2018. Moreover, he added, the law and order situation in Yemen the locust was not controlled properly.
“The total of 11,341km per square area has been treated out of total surveyed 615,526km per square surveyed area across in Balochistan, Punjab, KP and Sindh,” he recalled.
