Pakistan: National Assembly session prorogued indefinitely, lasts only 12 minutes

The National Assembly's session on Friday lasted only 12 minutes before being prorogued for an indefinite period.

As per Dawn, the indefinite adjournment left the fate of the recently tabled controversial Finance Supplementary Bill 2021 in limbo.

The National Assembly session, presided over by Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri, was suspended for a few minutes when an opposition member pointed out a lack of quorum. Later, due to the low attendance of the members, the session was prorogued for an indefinite period.

However, the government believes that the bill would be passed smoothly with a simple majority in the next session of the house to be commenced in the middle of January, reported Dawn.

Sources in the National Assembly Secretariat said it was unprecedented that a day after tabling an important bill, the assembly session was prorogued without deciding the fate of the bill.

It has been also learnt that backdoor negotiations are in progress between the government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to convince the lender that the government was meeting its condition of getting Finance Supplementary Bill 2021 and granting autonomy to the State Bank of Pakistan and both the bills would be passed either before or after IMF meeting on January 12 in which USD 1 billion tranches for Pakistan is likely to be approved, reported Dawn.

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday presided over a special meeting of the federal cabinet that approved Finance Supplementary Bill 2021 which was later introduced in the National Assembly by Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin.

Later, the prime minister chaired a meeting of the PTI parliamentary party where the finance minister apprised the participants of the bill and also addressed their concerns about the amendments to the State Bank Act.

The meeting of the parliamentary party was attended by the cabinet members and other members of the parliament, including government allies.

On the other hand, the opposition which protested against the tabling of the bill in the NA on Thursday continued to slam the government on Friday for introducing what it called the mini-budget and believed that the bill would further increase food inflation in the country, reported Dawn.

The opposition alleged that the government was going to give the keys of the central bank to the IMF.

( With inputs from ANI )

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