Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal has opened a new Pandora’s box after admitting that he did not know who prepared the provincial budget as he saw the document only hours before its presentation, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.
Jam Kamal said neither he nor his cabinet knew anything about the Balochistan budget. “We get the budget copies at 3pm on June 18 and then we took them to the provincial assembly at 5pm for its presentation,” he added.
The chief minister said his government, cabinet and lawmakers were totally in the dark about the budget.
Jam Kamal said the Opposition’s protest during the budget session was uncalled for. “If the budget was incorrect as the Opposition claimed then the question arises if the government, cabinet and government members did not know about the budget, only the opposition knew what was in the budget then their protest was wrong.”
He further said the opposition should have let the government table the budget, they should have read it in two-three hours, then they should have raised an objection and caused a ruckus which makes sense.
Observers say now the question arises whether the Balochistan government is unaware or powerless?
Who framed the budget and from where the figures added up would open a new pandora’s box, the observers said.
Dead mike triggers lively dialogue
An interesting situation was witnessed in Balochistan Assembly on Saturday during the budget debate when the mike of Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal stopped working while he was making a speech.
This led to an interesting dialogue between the chief minister and the speaker.
Speaker Abdul Qadoos Bizenjo taunted the chief minister, saying the faulty mike is portraying rightly the three-year performance of the provincial government.
The chief minister quickly responded without any hesitation and reminded the speaker that keeping assembly’s mikes in order is the responsibility of the speaker.
Bizenjo further said they had written to the C&W Department a number of times complaining about the faulty mikes but it seemed their request was not heeded.
Jam Kamal on his turn said that the speaker should have bought the mikes from the market instead of waiting for C&W for mikes only.
Bizenjo said not just the mikes rather the whole system needed a repair.
Jam Kamal then said all the allies should collect donations for repairing the faulty mikes of the assembly.
Reporter Rizwan Saeed