ISLAMABAD, June 21, 2019: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly on Friday started general discussion on the provincial Annual Budget for financial year 2019-20, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the proceedings during second sitting of the seventh session:

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for three hours and 20 minutes while the proceedings remained suspended for ten minutes due to absence of the Parliamentary Secretaries.
• The sitting started at 1432 hours against the scheduled time of 1400 hours.
• The Deputy Speaker presided over the entire sitting in the absence of the Speaker.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire proceedings.
• The Leader of the House did not attend the sitting.
• Forty-nine legislators (40%) were present at the outset and 62 (50%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of MMAP, PPPP, PML-Q and ANP attended the proceedings.
• All three minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Representation and Responsiveness.

• Four lawmakers – two (MMAP) and each one from PPPP and PTI – took part in the debate on Provincial Annual Budget for Financial Year 2019-20 for two hours and 50 minutes.

Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers belonging to PPPP and PTI protested on floor of the House for ten minutes for exchange of inappropriate remarks against each other during budget speeches.
• The treasury lawmakers walked out against use of inappropriate words by a PPPP lawmaker in his speech. However, they returned to the House after ten minutes.
• The House was later adjourned to meet again on June 22 (Saturday) at 1030 hours.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ is available for the legislators, observers and the media.
• Attendance of the lawmakers is 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 are excepted