ISLAMABAD, December 27, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) transacted most of the agenda appearing on its List of Business on Friday and passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mines Safety, Inspection and Regulation Bill, 2019, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

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

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for two hours and 15 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1054 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the sitting for an hour and 54 minutes while rest of the sitting was chaired by a Member of the Chairpersons in absence of the Deputy Speaker.
• The Leader of the House did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as 50(34%) legislators were present at the start and 20(14%) at the end of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of BAP and PML-Q attended the sitting.
• Three out of four minority members were present.

Output

• Moved by the Minister for Law, the House unanimously passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mines Safety, Inspection and Regulation Bill, 2019.
• The Minister for Law presented the Audit Report of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Commission (KPIC) for the year 2018-19 while another statutory report appearing on agenda was deferred.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up nine out of 15 starred questions appearing on the list while the lawmakers asked nine supplementary questions.
• The Minister for Law responded to a Call Attention Notice (CAN) of PTI lawmakers about sub-contracting of the development work by government contractors. Another CAN appeared on agenda was left unaddressed due to movers’ absence.
• The Chair referred a Privilege Motion of ANP lawmaker against the Deputy Commissioner of District Lower Dir to the Standing Committee on Privileges.
• The Chair admitted an Adjournment Motion (AM) of ANP lawmaker for discussion in next sitting which was about taxes on electricity for business community in tax exempted area of KP i.e. Malakand Division while another AM was not taken up due to absence of its mover.
• The House discussed an AM regarding traffic congestion at University Road, Peshawar. As many as six lawmakers debated the AM for 32 minutes.

Order and Institutionalization

• As many as five lawmakers spoke on three Points of Order consuming ten minutes of the proceedings.
• The parliamentary leader of BAP walked out at 1258 hours against the attitude of the Chair who disallow him to raise Point of Order. He did not return to the House until adjournment.
• An independent lawmaker pointed out the quorum at 1306 hours on which, the Chair ordered ringing of the bells for two minutes. The quorum was found incomplete on recounting and the Chair adjourned the House to meet again on December 30, 2019 (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