ISLAMABAD, April 26, 2021: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) adopted three supplementary resolutions and discussed quota for students of Balochistan and ex-FATA in medical colleges of Punjab, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Monday.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during 8th sitting of the 17th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for two hours and 18 minutes.
• The sitting started at 02:22 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
• The speaker chaired the entire sitting, while the deputy speaker was also present
• The leaders of the house (chief minister) and the opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 41 (28 percent) legislators were present at the start and 51 (35 percent) at the end of the sitting.
• Two out of four minority members were present.
• The parliamentary leaders of BAP, ANP and MMAP attended the sitting.

Output

• Moved by the Minister for local government, the House passed the Peshawar Development Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
• The House adopted three supplementary resolutions demanding to relax criteria for Prime Minister’s Ehsas Program, start monetization process of Facebook pages to benefit youth and contact the federal government for constitutional extension of provincial quota in the federal services for further 20 years.

Representation and Responsiveness

• An adjournment motion of an independent lawmaker regarding Pak-Afghan trade was admitted for discussion.
• Seven lawmakers debated an adjournment motion for an hour which was regarding reduction of quota for students of Balochistan and ex-FATA in medical colleges of Punjab. The Special Assistant to chief minister on higher education concluded the debate and spoke on the issue for ten minutes.
• The Minister for health responded to a calling attention notice (CAN) regarding policy of provincial government to close markets and restrict transport on Saturday and Sunday due to coronavirus situation.
• The House did not take up another CAN regarding lack of treatment facilities for cancer patients at major health facilities of the province including Hayat Medical Complex, Lady reading and Khyber Teaching hospitals.
• The House took up six out of 10 starred questions while lawmakers asked four supplementary questions as well.

  Order and Institutionalization

• The Session was prorogued sine die.

Transparency

• ‘List of Business’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• The attendance of lawmakers was not available to the observers and media.

This daily factsheet is based on the observation of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly proceedings conducted online by United Rural Development Organization (URDO) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions excepted