PESHAWAR: The treasury in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Wednesday faced embarrassment as it struggled to respond to the questions of the opposition on different issues.

Most of the opposition members’ supplementary questions related to the written answers given by the relevant departments weren’t answered by members of the cabinet.

The lawmakers from the opposition benches criticised the ministers, advisers and assistants to the chief minister for coming to the assembly unprepared.

Special assistant to the chief minister Arif Yousaf had no reply to the supplementary questions of several opposition members wanting to know whether the government has any plan to stop wastage of 34 per cent water from the province’s share under the 1991 water accord.

To a question of MPA Zarin Gul, the irrigation department had replied that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had been utilising 66 per cent of its share under the said accord, while the rest couldn’t be utilised due to unavailability of canal system.

Parliamentary leader of QWP Sikandar Sherpao Anisazeb Tahirkheli, MPA Sultan Khan and Abdul Sattar in separate supplementary questions asked Arif Yousaf to inform the house about the government’s future plan to use the remaining water, too.

Mr Yousaf had no reply and insisted movers should file fresh questions on the matter.

Replying to the question about ANP parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak on the construction of a dam, the special assistant said the water reservoir couldn’t be built without the support of the Asian Development Bank.

He said consultation between the government and ADB on the project was in progress.

Mr Babak said if the government was unable to construct a single dam, then how it would build 350 water reservoirs in line with a promise made by PTI chief Imran Khan during a public rally a few days ago in Swat.

He also asked the provincial government to explain if funds for the construction of 350 dams would be generated from its own resources or donors would come forward for it.

Instead of sharing facts and figures in the house, information minister Shah Farman said a supplementary question couldn’t be asked on the matter at the moment.

“At least acknowledge that we have planned construction of new dams even if we don’t have no money for it,” he said.

The opposition lawmakers said the money used for the assembly sessions was going to waste as the public interest were not served here.

They urged deputy speaker Imtiaz Shahid, who chaired the session, to give a ruling that ministers, advisers and special assistants should come to the house fully prepared about the agenda of the assembly.

At one stage, minister Shah Farman asked the opposition members to deal leniently with the treasury members saying they (treasury members) don’t have much experience of parliamentary affairs.

He said the opposition members had a lot of that experience and could raise supplementary questions on the answers given by government departments about which the respondents were often unprepared.

“It is a joke with the nation that the cabinet members even do not bother to know about the needs of the people,” he said.

MPA Nighat Orakzai said answers of the opposition’s questions came to the assembly after six months and even then, the relevant cabinet members had no proper answer to them.