ISLAMABAD, October 24, 2018: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa approved the Finance Bill 2018 on Wednesday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

Following are some key observations of the House proceedings during seventh sitting of third session:

Members’ Participation

• The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly met for four hours and 10 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1040 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
• As much as 55 members (44%) were present at the start and 32 (26%) at the end of the sitting.
• The Speaker chaired the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was also present.
• The Chief Minister attended the sitting for an hour and 40 minutes.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for two hours and 30 minutes.
• The parliamentary leaders of MMA, ANP and PPP attended the sitting.
• As many as two out of three minority members were present.

Output                                             

• The House debated the Demand for Grant (DoG) of PKR 13,924,764,000 for the department of Higher Education, Archives and Libraries. The lawmakers had submitted 15 Cut Motions on the demand, 14 of which were withdrawn by the movers while one lapsed due to absence of the concerned lawmaker.
• The remaining 46 DoGs were put to House without any debate and were approved as it is. The Leader of Opposition withdrew all Cut Motions on these demands on the behalf of the movers.
• Moved by the Minister for Finance, the House also approved the KP Finance Bill, 2018. The amendments proposed to the bill lapsed due to absence of the concerned lawmakers.

Order and Institutionalization

• A lawmaker spoke on a Point of Order consuming three minutes of the proceedings. He highlighted the issue regarding performance of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and laying off journalists by media houses.

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.

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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