The National Assembly's budget session ended on Saturday. There was a long list of encomiums. The names mentioned were those of Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain, the Opposition and Syed Khurshid Ahmad Shah, particularly singled out for this honour-President Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, State Minister Omar Ayub Khan and members of the Treasury benches.
After all the House had approved a remarkable job - on this day it had approved a supplementary grant of enormous proportion- Rs 640 billion of the poor tax payer's money. Indeed, this was an exercise in efficient money management!
Be that as it might, some Members did express concern at the astronomical figure one Rs 290 million excess spending on overseas visits of the President and the Prime Minister.
Supplementary grants related to additional expenditures spent with the consent of Finance Ministry but over and above the Parliament's yearly authorisation. They related to a period as far back as 20 years, 1986-87, for example. No wonder, Maulana Akbar Chitrali stood up to ask the question: but should he not know on what the government had spent the money?
However, a number of good points emerged during the discussion. Nahid Khan accused the budget makers of losing the faculty of counting correct mathematical figures about disbursement of foreign and domestic debts and loans but urged the establishment of an autonomous as well as an independent Statistics Division. The department would store authentic data to help country's planners.
Once again, M P Bhandara appeared to be on the warpath. He has iconoclastic views about running the Parliament, and today he spoke on the correct way to scrutinise the budget.
'We simply mutter yes on this (Treasury) side, and the Opposition also makes uninformed comments on the other side. Neither side was willing to consider the annual fiscal policy of the government in correct perspective. Handing down advice for future Assemblies, he wanted the document to be deconstructed in a scientific manner.
Did he mean that it was the end of the present Assembly? After his end of the budget speech of Friday, the House was willing to believe the Prime Minister that this Assembly still had about 'four months 28 days of life' (Mir Zafarullah Jamali). Every one should look forward, he said, advising the MQM faction to put the unpleasant episodes of May 12 behind them.
However, MQM's Farooq Sattar told a different story about the rally on May 12. It was done with the government's consent. 'Our party felt cheated.' Leader of the Opposition Maulana Fazlur Rahman urged the government to leave behind good tradition for the future generation of Pakistan and suggested the House must complete the mandated term of five years.
The Maulana was worried about the dirty work of the Jamia Hafsa moral brigade that invaded a Chinese beauty parlour last night taking three Chinese personnel as hostage. 'Allah has commanded Muslims to invite people to the right path. No one had the right to force His Will on any one and to act outside the law. The Holy Qura'an had asked the Holy Prophet (PBUH) to preach goodness and draw people to the side of Allah.
He said the community of scholars considered the antics of the preachers at Hafsa Masjid outside the law and therefore asked that law should be enforced. At the same time, the Maulana stated that the Muslim society had its own norms and the government of a Muslim country must strive to work within the stated framework and uphold the virtues of good public behaviour as sanctioned by customs and traditions of the society.
PML-N's Member Khwaja Asif informed the House that the preacher at Jamea Hafsa, a government employee, had received a present of 500 sq. yards plot of land, and the Moulvi's might be command performance. It was time to witness the drop scene of a drama that, in his view, had been orchestrated by intelligent agencies.
However, the Jamea Hafsa issue was got twined with two other issues. One relating to hanging political banners dominated the proceedings in the morning. During this time, the Speaker found himself unable to proceed with the business of the Supplementary Budget. In spite of a resolve made of restricting Members from speaking on points of order, he had to yield.
We also witnessed shouting duels between the Religious Affairs Minister Ijazul Haq and the PPP's chief whip Syed Khurshid Ahmad Shah. The banner with Benazir's Bhutto name printed on it in derogatory manner, as described by Nahid Khan and Khurshid Shah was fiercely debated.
PPP Members reminded the Speaker of his ruling given yesterday that the banner offensive to the leaders of political parties must be removed Minister of State Zafar Iqbal nearly swore that the banner was indeed removed last night but some one had put them up again, mysteriously in the morning.