ISLAMABAD, September 15, 2020: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) discussed Billion Tree Afforestation Project and passed a government bill on Tuesday, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during ninth sitting of the 13^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for two hours and 49 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1521 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the sitting for an hour and 35 minutes while rest of the sitting was presided over by the Deputy Speaker.
• The Leaders of the House and the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 45 (31%) MPAs were present at the outset and 60 (41%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of BAP, ANP, PML MMA attended the sitting.
• Two minority members were present in the sitting.

Output

• Moved by the Provincial Minister for Food, the House passed COVID-19 (Prevention of Hoarding) Bill, 2020.
• Tabled by an MMAP lawmaker, the House adopted a supplementary resolution in connection with International Day of Democracy to strengthen democratic institutions of the country.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Provincial Minister for Law responded to two Call attention Notices regarding construction of a road in Tank city and one percent tax collection in district Mardan for several months.
• The House took up all eight starred questions while lawmakers also asked four supplementary questions.
• As many as 15 lawmakers debated the Billion Trees Afforestation Project for an hour and 14 minutes of the proceedings. Minister for Environment, Forest and Wildlife concluded the debate on it during his 15-minute speech.
• The House did not hold discussion on the state of the education in the Province.
• Four privilege motions of as many lawmakers were referred to the relevant committee.

Order and Institutionalization

• The House was adjourned to meet again on September 18, 2020 (Friday) 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.

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