The parliamentarians have strongly condemned the absence of officials of Ministry of Health (MoH) during the call attention notice on the agenda of their ministry in the National Assembly with Chair directing the government to conduct the inquiry and submit the report to the Parliament.
This was not for the first time that the officials of Ministry of Health were not present when the call attention notice of their ministry was on the agenda. The problem remained unresolved despite repeated observations by the Chair and clear directives of the Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani that bureaucrats must ensure their presence in the House whenever there is an issue/item on the agenda regarding their ministries.
Dr Fehmida Mirza, Speaker National Assembly, taking strong exception of the issue, directed the Minister for Labour and Manpower to conduct an inquiry and submit the report to the Parliament as to why no official from the Ministry of Health was present in the House when there was call attention notice on the agenda of their ministry.
Subsequently, the Chair deferred the call attention notice till Monday (tomorrow) and both the treasury and opposition parliamentarians termed it as uncalled for attitude of the bureaucracy for which the House must teach them a lesson for not taking the Parliament seriously. Earlier, Parliamentary Secretary for Health, Mahreen Bhutto informed the House that she was not given any briefing by the Ministry of Health about the call attention notice moved by the members regarding non-recognition of Pakistani medical students studying in Cuba by Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC). She said that the Ministry was informed about the call attention notice but no one bothered to brief her on the issue.
She deplored that irresponsible attitude of senior officials of Health Ministry was also reflected during the question hour session on Thursday when no one from the ministry bothered to appear in the House to take note on question related to their ministry. The call attention notice would now be taken on Monday (tomorrow).
The Minister for Special Initiative Lal Muhammad Khan responding to a call attention notice regarding non-repair of water filtration in Federal Capital said that the federal government is working on a plan to install water filtration plants at each Union Council to ensure provision of clean drinking water to the people. The minister said that it is the matter of concern that despite repeated instructions from the federal government, the provincial governments are not co-operating in the implementation of the project. He said due to lack of interest of provincial governments this project has not been fully geared up yet.
He said that he has given a proposal to the Prime Minister to install these water filtration plants on the recommendations of parliamentarians so that maximum number of people could be benefited. The call attention about non-repair of water filtration plants was moved by Chaudhry Barjees Tahir and others.