ISLAMABAD, September 13, 2021: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) passed two government bills on Monday amid opposition’s protest, observes Fee and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during the 12th sitting of 20th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for an hour and 45 minutes.
• The sitting started at 02:50 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
• The deputy speaker chaired the entire sitting in the absence of speaker.
• The leaders of the House (Chief Minister) and the opposition were absent.
• As many as 48 MPAs (33 percent) were present at the outset and 49 (34 percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leader of ANP, PPPP, BAP and MMAP attended the proceedings.
• Two out of four minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Output

• The House passed two government bills including the KP Universities (Second Amendment) Bill, 2021 and the KP Local Government (Third Amendment) Bill, 2021.
• The House witnessed introduction of three bills which were the KP Factories (Amendment) Bill, 2021; the KP (Regularization of Services of Employees of Erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas) Bill, 2021 and the West Pakistan Motor Vehicles Taxation (Amendment) Bill, 2021.

 Representation and Responsiveness 

• The House took up nine out of ten starred questions, while the lawmakers asked four supplementary questions.
• Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Information responded to a calling attention notice (CAN) regarding overbilling by National Electric Power Regulatory Authority.
• The Chair admitted an adjournment motion for debate in next sitting which was regarding use of Electronic Voting Machines in elections.
• Minister for labor spoke on an adjournment motion regarding law and order situation in Peshawar.

Order and Institutionalization

• Lawmakers belonging to opposition protested for 33 minutes when the Chair disallowed parliamentary leader of BAP to speak on an issue about violation of quota during induction in health department against 481 seats.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 02:00 pm.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available for the legislators, observers and the media.
• Attendance of the lawmakers was not available for the observers and the media.

This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the KP Assembly proceedings conducted by the United Rural Development Organization (URDO) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions excepted