The National Assembly Standing Committee on Human Rights on Monday expressed displeasure over absence of chief secretary Balochistan and other relevant officials from the meeting and also rejected the inquiry report of the provincial labour and manpower department on Gadani incident.The meeting of the committee was held here in the Parliament House in the chair of MNA Babar Nawaz Khan.
The chairman said the relevant officials did not turn up in the last three meetings of the committee and if they fail to show up in the next meeting for a briefing to the members, he will use his privilege to summon them.
"The inquiry report seems to be a pack of lies and exaggeration," the committee chairman said while referring to the inquiry report on Gadani incident wherein 26 labourers died.
"The whole report is based on lies," said Kishwer Zehra, member of the committee.
Babar Nawaz and other committee members also admonished the Balochistan Labour and Manpower officials present in the meeting as they were not prepared to brief the members about the incident.
The officials seem to be on a leisure trip in Islamabad, therefore they should not be entitled to withdraw TA/DA for it, he said. Majority of the committee members, however, didn't agree to the committee chairman's proposal that a letter should be written to withhold TA/DA of the officials.
The additional secretary Ministry of Human Rights informed the committee members about different lacunae in the legislation to deal with the ship-breaking industry. She said the ship-breaking in Balochistan is not treated as a regular industry; therefore two separate bills for legislation have been prepared.
Sayed Essa Nori pointed out the contradictions in statistics of the death toll as the Labour and Manpower Department officials said 26 labourers died while the minister for ports and shipping had said on the floor of the National Assembly that 28 people lost their lives in the Gadani incident.
The deputy director Labour Department briefed the committee members about the causes of the incident and precautionary measures adopted to avoid recurrence of such incidents.
He said the ship owner neither obtained a no-objection certificate from Balochistan Development Authority under Balochistan Ship Breaking Rules nor from Environmental Protection Agency.
"The ship owner started ship breaking without informing the Labour Department," he said. "The owner had started cutting the ship with the help of gas plant without properly draining the oil," he added.
In his briefing, he said, "The ship breaking must be given the status of regular industry and a proper regulatory authority must be established to govern the ship breaking industry."
Proper legislation for ship breaking industry must be promulgated for the enforcement of laws on urgent basis, he demanded, adding there is a need to chalk out specific standing operating procedure (SOP) and sophisticated inspection mechanism.
He admitted during the briefing that labourers working on the ill-fated ship were not registered with the Labour Department. He also failed to satisfy the members about exact death toll in the incident.
Sayed Essa Nori pointed out in the committee that 70 per cent people of Balochistan have migrated to safer places while majority of the population doesn't have their national identity cards; therefore the committee should take stock of it before the federal government starts census in the province.
Dr Shazia Sobia asked the committee chairman to include the issue of missing persons and human trafficking in agenda of the next meeting as these were important human rights issues.
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