ISLAMABAD, March 2, 2020: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa held first reading of a government bill that seeks to manage and regulate the water resources in the province, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Monday.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during sixth sitting of the 11^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for 17 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1523 hours against the scheduled time of 1400 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was also present.
• The Leaders of the House did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as 60 (41%) legislators were present at the start and 65 (45%) at the end of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of ANP, BAP, PPPP and MMAP attended the sitting.
• Three out of four minority members were present in the sitting.

Output

• The Provincial Minister for Law introduced the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Water Bill, 2020 in the House. The bill seeks to establish an institutional framework for effective management and utilization of provincial water resources. The bill was not referred to any committee.
• Moved as supplementary agenda, the House adopted three resolutions that urged the provincial government to provide better equipment to polytechnic institutes for women, to make commerce and technical education compulsory from middle to matric-level education, to revert the embargo on 25-year old vehicles. In another resolution, the House condemned the incident of burning national flag by Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) workers.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House did not observe the question hour due to opposition’s protest.
• The House did not take up two Call Attention Notices appearing on agenda.

 Order and Institutionalization

• The opposition lawmakers protested against the government’s attitude towards the business of the House. The protest continued during the entire sitting.
• The Chair adjourned the House till March 16, 2020 (Monday) at 1400 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