Press Gallery Saeed Minhas Islamabad:

When parliament does not have the credibility and its members carry cash for work sort of files instead of any research papers or case studies on issues of national or public importance, they are bound to find out that neither their unanimous resolutions carry any weights nor the orders of speaker or chairman senate get implemented. This harsh reality, which many parliamentarians from both houses preferred to contest publically but admit in private by adding their own experiences in it, came to the fore when chairman senate Farooq H. Naek passed an order to arrest, referring towards those hidden hands and heads of security agencies without whom he and many others cannot utter even a single word, all such anonymous persons threatening journalists in Karachi and Quetta. Sounds good for public consumption but will the chairman senate or for that matter madam speaker of the National Assembly care to tell this sovereign parliament that with over 3000 employees for a total house strength of 442 elected members and a budgetary allocation of almost three billion rupees what they have done to improve the credibility, working and most importantly the outcome of the parliament. Yes we have seen both the chairman and the madam speaker entangled in a war of egos for determining that who will inaugurate a newly renovated cafeteria in the parliament house and when some saner elements prevailed they both went to do it jointly. Instead of developing the parliament s secretariat as a model of research and analysis, both the Chairman and the madam have opted for a status quo by allowing their respective secretaries to continue working on extension after extension.

When we look at the Senate s secretariat working Debates on the budget were as predictable as they were three years ago because by now not only pen pushers like me but many in general public have almost memorized what Tehmina Daultana of Noon league would come up come with and what blind followers of the ruling janta like Makhdoom