ISLAMABAD: During a Senate session, Senator Raza Rabbani claimed that many aspects of the Official Secrets (Amendment) Bill 2023 have been kept secret.
Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar moved the bill, and Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Chairman Rana Maqbool Ahmed presented the committee’s report on the bill.
Senator Rabbani regretted that the in-camera briefings have been prohibited in the bill. He, however, praised the decision to withdraw the provision of arrests without a warrant.
Reservations over the new Digital Census
Meanwhile, JUI-F Senator Kamran Murtaza expressed reservations over the population of Balochistan and walked out of the Senate in protest against the approval of the new digital census. The House held a debate on the recently approved census by the Council of Common Interests.
However, Senator Murtaza lamented that the province’s population had been reduced by 6.4 million, and he could not tolerate a possible increase of seven to eight seats in the province. He criticized the involvement of two chief ministers and two caretaker chief ministers in the approval process.
The law minister defended the census, stating that Communications Minister Maulana Asad Mehmood of the JUI-F had participated in the meeting, and there was unanimous approval. He claimed that the population of Balochistan had actually increased and that there was no malice regarding the digital census. The Balochistan chief minister was also present at the meeting.
Moreover, the finance minister, Ishaq Dar, urged everyone to approach the matter realistically and clarified that the decision for the digital census was made by the previous government with the presence of eight members. He provided statistics, mentioning that the average growth rate of the population was 2.55%, and Balochistan reported the highest growth rate of 3.2% in the 2017 census. The census incurred a cost of Rs34 billion.
In addition, PPP Senator Raza Rabbani expressed solidarity with Balochistan on the new census. He also expressed concern that the elections, scheduled to be held in 90 days, might be postponed, which would be unconstitutional and disastrous for the federation. Raza Rabbani urged the election commission to swiftly complete the process of constituencies to ensure timely elections.
Other bills approved
The House passed The Higher Education Commission (Amendment) Bill 2023, The Pakistan International Airline Corporation (Conversion) (Amendment) Bill 2023, and The Zakat and Usher (Amendment) Bill 2023. However, The Prevention of Violent Extremism Bill 2023 was withdrawn by the government.
Furthermore, the House introduced “The Federal Public Service Commission (Amendment) Bill 2023” and the chair referred it to the relevant standing committee.
The House is scheduled to meet again on Monday at 3 pm.
