Industrial and Commercial Employment (Amend) Bill moved in Punjab Assembly

The Punjab government on Monday tabled The Punjab Industrial and Commercial Employment (Standing Orders) (Amendment) Bill 2011 in the Punjab Assembly. Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah presented the bill under a bizarre situation. Speaker Rana Iqbal asked the minister to present the bill after the opposition benches pointed out quorum.
Despite repeated reminders from an opposition member that quorum has been pointed out and thus the House's business cannot continue, the Speaker permitted the minister to table the bill and later promptly adjourned the House. Overall, the Monday's Assembly was bizarre. At one point, the House adopted the role of a district assembly. During the question-house session on local government and community development department, the legislators were debating issues like overcharging by parking-stand owners, new sites for graveyard in Lahore, repair of roads and fumigation against dengue in Lahore. The irony of the whole situation was that the concerned Minister was not present on the occasion, as he was busy in Rawalpindi/Islamabad with donor agencies. And that minister is Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif; since reshuffling of Punjab Cabinet, the local government ministry lies with him.
The fact of the matter is, in the absence of district governments in Punjab, the House is constrained to take up such matters, which is consuming its precious time. It is a job of district governments to deal with district-level matters, whereas the House's job is to deliberate on policy matters. It seems the government has no realisation of this. Also, it is sad to note that a full-day session cost over Rs 10 million, which comes out of taxpayers' pockets, and the legislators waste that money on issues that are not in their domain.
Strangely, no legislator raised a question about the government's intention on the revival of local government system in the province; they were too busy in grilling parliamentarian secretary on local government Abdul Razaq Dhillon. Even PML-N backbenchers did not spare the parliamentarian secretary who had not a clue about the functioning of local government system. His incompetence proved a huge embarrassment for the government.
Later, the House's precious time was used on mudslinging by the legislators. The PPP used kidnapping of the former Governor Salman Taseer's son (Shahbaz Taseer) as a weapon to malign the Punjab Chief Minister and Punjab Law Minister. On a call attention notice, Shaukat Basra of PPP lambasted the government for failing to recover Shahbaz Taseer and also questioned the involvement of both the Punjab Chief Minister and Punjab Law Minister in the kidnapping. This might sound bizarre, but Shaukat Basra also asked the Law Minister to give a date for the safe recovery of the former Governor Salman Taseer's son.
In response, Rana Sanuallah told the House that a joint investigation team, under the supervision of DIG Ali Ahmed Malik, is investigating the case and it has achieved some success, and the members of the Taseer's family are informed of all the latest developments. He assured the House that they were trying their maximum to trace the kidnappers. "It is a sensitive matter and hence they cannot share the developments with the House," he added.