Sindh Assembly legislators unanimously vote for Zakat, Ushr Bill 2011

The provincial legislators on Monday unanimously voted for a Zakat and Ushr Bill 2011 to become a law at Sindh Assembly session, aiming at ensuring an effective assessment, collection and distribution of Zakat and Ushr in the province.
The presenter of the bill, Sindh Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Ayaz Soomro maintained the addition of 18th Amendment to the Constitution had transferred the Zakat and Ushr subject to provinces, therefore, legislation on a provincial level became necessary.
Despite unanimous vote to passing of the bill into the law, National Peoples Party's Arif Mustafa Jatoi argued that the bill had some "technical faults" and tabled a number of amendments against them for correction purpose. In the absence of Speaker Nisar Khohro, Deputy Speaker Shela Raza chaired the session and allowed Jatoi to present his amendments to the bill after about 10 minutes of discussion. He said the bill before tabling in the assembly should have been consulted with the concerned committee to remove flaws in it.
He said the bill was an exact copy of the Federal Bill dealing in the same subject and, therefore, was not meeting the provincial legislative standards and should be changed, accordingly. "The bill contains technical flaws and was copied from a federal bill," Jatoi said.
But Ayaz Soomro said that the sending of the bill to the concerned committee would further delay its passage into the law, therefore, it was directly tabled. "It is an adjournment motion and sending it the concerned committee would further delay its passage into the law," he explained, saying the bill was aimed at weeding out the old system of Zakat and Ushr collection with introduction of a new one.
Lastly, the house with amendments, which Arif Jatoi had proposed unanimously voted in favour of the Sindh Zakat and Ushr Bill 2011 to become the law. Earlier, at the question and answer session, Sindh Education Minister Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq informed the house that there were about 525, of which 333 boys and 192, primary schools in Chachro, Nagarparkar, Mithi and Deeplo districts were shut for want of teachers, and not 900 schools. He assured the members that the government was making efforts to resume academic sessions there, and at first, 28 boys and two girls schools had been opened for education.
To a question of Mohammad Moin Aamir Pirzada, he said there were alone 58 out of 372 primary schools lying non-functional in Gaddap town. He added one each in Bin Qasim (160), Saddar (183), Site (116), Keamari (146), Balida (83), Gulshan-e-Iqbal (77), Landhi (149), and Korangi (103).
He said since the city and district governments had come into being these schools had been taken from Sindh government and shrugged off responsibility for grim conditions facing these academic institutions. Mazhar suggested the schools across the province should be given back to the Sindh government for better management and enhanced academic sessions.
He said the city and district governments were unable to run these schools properly province-wide. He added since the promulgation of SLGO 2001, the education at the government schools were in regression. He rejected the impression that Mehran Collage and Marvi College in Moro were running without principals. He said Dr Ghulam Muhammad Dahri had been appointed principal of Mehran Collage.
However, Professor Nadir Ali Gopgan has been appointed to perform duties as a principal of Marvi College till posting of a lady principal, he added. The minister pointed out that the Sindh government had regularised all ad hoc lecturers on the recommendation of Sindh Public Service Commission except 26 who failed in interviews of the commission. He said there were 545 ad hoc lecturers appointed in June 2005 and not 600. The Speaker adjourned the session till Tuesday morning at 10 am.