NA fails to take up agenda as opposition protests fuel price hike

ISLAMABAD: A 90-point agenda could not be taken up in the National Assembly (NA) on Friday amid a protest by the opposition over an unprecedented increase of 43 per cent and 55pc in the prices of petrol and high-speed diesel (HSD), respectively.

The increase, which has led to the petrol price being set at Rs458.4 per litre and HSD price at Rs520.35 per litre, was announced late on Thursday night against the backdrop of a global fuel crunch resulting from the ongoing war in the Middle East.

As the opposition protested the decision in the NA, Deputy Speaker Ghulam Mustafa Shah, who was presiding over the proceedings, had to adjourn the sitting without the House transacting any business.

The NA was supposed to take up a 90-point agenda, including a question hour, a calling attention notice on the change in net metering policy for solar prosumers and several bills. But none of these matters was addressed, with the opposition beginning a noisy protest even before the question hour — the first item on the agenda.

During the protest, the House echoed with slogans against the hike and denouncing the government, such as “thief government unacceptable” and “looter government unacceptable”. Opposition members also surrounded the speaker’s podium and tore up copies of the agenda.

Several members from the opposition benches said they wanted to speak on the price hike for petrol and diesel.

Meanwhile, Deputy Speaker Shah kept on assuring the members that they would get the chance to speak after the question hour, but to no avail.

Eventually, he allowed PTI’s Junaid Akbar to speak, who criticised the government for being “incompetent” and “corrupt”, claiming that it had been foisted on people.

“Last night, you saw how this imposed government dropped a petrol bomb on the people,“ he said.

The deputy speaker was annoyed when he went on to criticise an institution, saying: “If you speak against institutions like this, I won’t let the session continue.”

The opposition continued their protest even after Akbar’s brief speech, which was not aired on the state television and the NA’s YouTube channel.

Before Shah adjourned the session till 5pm on Monday, he remarked, “You cannot dictate the chair like this.”

At the outset of the proceedings, he had sought details of the government delegation’s conversation with journalists who had walked out of the NA’s press gallery on Thursday in protest against layoffs in several media houses and the suspension of salaries in many others.

Later, a team comprising MNAs Shazia Marri, Barrister Aqeel Malik, and Monazza Hassan, had met the journalists and assured them that all their demands would be met soon.

Hassan informed the deputy speaker that the journalists had put forward some “genuine demands”, adding that media houses were firing journalists “unjustly without even serving a notice and some of them had not paid salaries for the last three months”.

She said some media houses were paying their employees below the minimum wage.

Hassan further said that the journalists had also expressed alarm over the decision to withdraw the discount on railway tickets for them.

She was of the view that the Information Minister Attaullah Tarar and NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq should intervene to ensure that their issues were addressed.