KP Assembly fails to transact agenda amid lack of quorum

ISLAMABAD, March 11, 2022: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) left its entire agenda unaddressed on Friday and was adjourned due to lack of quorum, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during the 2nd sitting of 21st session:

Members’ Participation

  • The House met for 45 minutes.
  • The sitting started at 11:00 am against the scheduled time of 10:00 am.
  • The deputy speaker presided over the entire proceedings in the absence of speaker.
  • The leaders of the House (chief minister) and the opposition did not attend the sitting.
  • As many as 20 MPAs (14 percent) were present at the outset and 30 (20 percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
  • Parliamentary leaders of all political parties were absent.
  • One out of four minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

 Output

  • The House did not consider two government bills appearing on `Orders of the Day’.

Representation and Responsiveness 

  • The House neither observed question hour nor took up two calling attention notices and as many adjournment motions.
  • A privilege motion of PTI lawmaker was not taken up.

Order and Institutionalization

  • A lawmaker belonging to MMAP pointed out quorum at 11:10 am following which the chair ordered the bells to be rung for five minutes. The quorum was found incomplete upon counting and the proceedings remaining suspended for 25 minutes. On resumption of the proceedings at 11:40 am, the Chair again ordered for counting but the quorum was found incomplete and the House was adjourned to meet again on Monday, March 14, 2022 at 02:00 pm.

Transparency

  • ‘Orders of the Day’ was available for the legislators, observers and the media.
  • Attendance of the lawmakers was not available for the observers and the media.

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