Islamabad:
The president of the National Assembly, Ayaz Sadiq, expressed a repentance on Friday for the opposition strike from the minutes of the Chamber of Representatives of Parliament and, subsequently, pointed out the lack of quorum that led to the postponement of the session.
The speaker declared that the opposition chose to leave the house at a time when there were important problems on the agenda. He stressed that most of the questions about the question time agenda were presented by opposition members.
“It is disappointing that the opposition chose to leave during the procedure when the camera discussed important national problems,” he said. “It is unfortunate that the opposition is distancing from the central responsibilities of Parliament,” he added.
The speaker said that 30 members participated in a debate on the issue of water channels, but most opposition matches, except Jamiat Jui-F, were absent that day. Due to the lack of quorum on Friday, Vice President Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah postponed the session until Monday.
Sadiq also clarified that the PPP had presented a resolution on the issue of channels on April 7, and the matter was discussed in detail the same day. However, the opposition presented another similar resolution on April 10.
When addressing the broader concerns raised by opposition parties, the speaker continued, those who often talked about issues such as Palestine and border security often did not appear when these issues were scheduled for the debate in the camera.
The National Assembly session began with President Ayaz Sadiq in the chair. However, the session was interrupted when Iqbal Afridi of the Sunita Ittehad (sic) Council pointed out the lack of quorum. The session was suspended for 30 minutes and then postponed due to insufficient assistance.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Energy informed the Chamber in a written response that “thanks to government efforts,” circular debt decreased by RS9 billion during the first six months of the current fiscal year, from RS2,393 billion in June 2024 to RS2,384 billion in December in December.
The Ministry of Energy said that the recovery of energy distribution companies had improved. The Ministry presented some aspects of the government’s strategic roadmap by 2025-29, including initiatives to identify energy losses and real-time monitoring to determine unauthorized consumption.
“To identify locations with high energy losses, a computerized energy auditors of distributors and transformers will be carried out,” said the answer. “An advanced measurement infrastructure system will be implemented for the evaluation of losses and monitoring in real time to identify unauthorized consumption.”
The Ministry said this strategy required that all consumers had electricity meters, so consumers without them would need them to install them. “The strategy includes the recovery action against the delinquent ones that are permanently disconnected under the land income law [and] and the contractor contractors will be installed in areas with high power robbery, “the Ministry of Energy wrote.
The Ministry added that, according to the Government’s strategy, the tube wells would be solarized to reduce the dependence of the network electricity and a recovery scheme for local administrations and discos would be introduced to collect delays.
