ISLAMABAD, September 23, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) held general discussion on increase in prices of food items and also witnessed introduction of four government bills, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Monday.

Following are some key observations of the House proceedings during sixth sitting of eighth session:

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for two hours and 50 minutes; however, the proceedings remained suspended for 10 minutes due to protest.
• The sitting started at 1530 hours against the scheduled time of 1430 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting.
• The Deputy Speaker did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the House was not present.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
• Fifty-six legislators (39%) were present at the outset and 41 (28%) at the end of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of ANP and MMAP attended the proceedings.
• Three out of four minority lawmakers were present.

Output                                             

• The Minister for Law introduced three government bills including the Succession (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) (Amendment) Bill, 2019, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Legal Aid Bill, 2019 and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Tourism Bill, 2019.
• The Minister for Health introduced the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Regional and District Health Authorities Bill, 2019.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up one out of ten starred questions while the remaining questions lapsed due to protest by the opposition lawmakers. A lawmaker asked one supplementary question as well.
• The Ministers for Law and Health responded to two Call Attention Notices (CANs) regarding non- implementation on job quota reserved for persons with disabilities and undue delay in development of Basic Health Units in district Shangla.
• A privilege motion of PTI lawmakers against Vice Dean of Gomal Medical College was referred to the relevant committee.
• The House held general discussion regarding increase in prices of food items. As many as four lawmakers – one each of PML-N, PTI, MMAP, and ANP – participated in debate consuming an hour and five minutes (38%) of the proceedings.

Order and Institutionalization

• As many as ten lawmakers spoke on six Points of Order consuming 20 minutes of the proceedings.
• The entire opposition staged a protest against the attitude of the Chair with an ANP lawmaker who was not satisfied with reply to his question. The Chair suspended the proceedings for ten minutes due to protest.
• PPPP lawmakers staged a protest for five minutes against the arrest of PPPP MNA Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah by NAB authorities.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on September 24, 2019 (Tuesday) at 1000 hours.

 Transparency

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

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This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the KP Assembly proceeding conducted by United Rural Development Organization (URDO) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted