KP Assembly Leaves 50 Percent Agenda Unaddressed

ISLAMABAD, January 10, 2020: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) left half of its agenda unaddressed on Friday and passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Civil Administration (Public Service Delivery and Good Governance) Bill, 2020, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during 9th sitting of the tenth session:

Members’ Participation

  • The Assembly met for an hour and 46 minutes.
  • The sitting started at 1115 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
  • The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was also present.
  • The Leader of the House did not attend the proceedings.
  • The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
  • As many as 60 (41%) legislators were present at the start and 62 (43%) at the end of the sitting.
  • The parliamentary leaders of ANP, PML and PPPP attended the sitting.
  • Four minority members were present.

Output

  • The Minister for Sports, Culture and Tourism introduced the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Vagrancy Restraint Bill, 2020 and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government Rest Houses and Tourism Properties (Development, Management and Regulation) Bill, 2020.
  • Moved by Minister for Law, the House unanimously passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Civil Administration (Public Service Delivery and Good Governance) Bill, 2020. The bill was introduced on January 6, 2020 and was never sent to a committee for review.
  • A lawmaker belonging to MMA introduced the Land Acquisition (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) Bill, 2020. The House referred the bill to the Select Committee with the consent of the mover and the relevant minister.

Representation and Responsiveness

  • The House took up eight out of 13 starred questions appearing on the list while the lawmakers asked seven supplementary questions. The Ministers for Food, Educational and Sports and Tourism responded to the questions.
  • The House did not address the Call Attention Notices (CANs).
  • The House deferred the discussion on a monitoring report on implementation of NFC Awards for 2018 and an Adjournment Motion regarding NFC Award.
  • The House admitted an Adjournment Motion for discussion on the performance of the testing service regarding the recent appointments in the education department. The discussion will take place in an upcoming sitting. As many as four lawmakers debated the admissibility of the motion consuming ten minutes.
  • Another AM seeking debate on the taxes imposed for Malakan Division lapsed after the Chair’s ruling on its admissibility.

Order and Institutionalization

  • In a ruling, the Speaker declared that the questions left unaddressed due to absence of the concerned ministers will be referred to the relevant standing committees.
  • A lawmaker spoke on a point of order consuming two minutes of the proceedings.
  • The House was adjourned to meet again on January 13, 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