ISLAMABAD, May 27, 2018:  The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly on Sunday passed the Constitution (Twenty-Fifth Amendment) Bill, 2018 paving way for the merger of the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) with the province, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are some key observations of the House proceedings during first sitting of the 29^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The KP Assembly met for two hours and 37 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1528 hours against the scheduled time 1400 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire proceedings.
• The Deputy Speaker’s post is lying vacant after the election of former Deputy Speaker as Senator on March 12, 2018.
• The Chief Minister and the Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as 52 MPAs (42%) were present at outset and 64 (52%) at adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leader of JI, PPPP, QWP, PML-N and ANP attended the sitting.
• Two minority lawmaker were present.

Output

• Introduced by Minister for Law, the House passed the Constitution (Twenty-Fifth Amendment) Bill, 2018.
• The amendment received 92 votes in its favor and seven in its opposition while nine lawmakers spoke on it for 40 minutes. The bill paves way for the merger of FATA with the province.
• Moved by a PTI lawmaker, the House adopted a resolution for tax relaxation in Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA) for ten years instead of five years and allocation of Rs. 100 billion per year for its development.
• The House adopted another resolution to ensure protection to transgender community which was sponsored by a PPPP lawmaker.

Order and Institutionalization

• PTI lawmakers protested on floor of the House against serving them show cause notices and allegations about not following the policy of party during Senate elections.
• JUI-F lawmaker also protested for three minutes after the statement of Minister for Public Health Engineering about reforms in FATA.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on May 28, 2018 (Monday) at 1100 hours.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• Information on Members’ attendance is not available to observers and media.

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The daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly proceedings conducted by United Rural Development Organization (URDO) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are regretted.