ISLAMABAD, August 23, 2021: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) transacted 70 percent of its agenda on Monday and passed the Shops and Establishments (Amendment) Bill, 2021, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the proceedings during 5th sitting of the 20th session:

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for two hours and 45 minutes.
• The sitting started at 03:05 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
• The deputy speaker presided over the entire sitting in the absence of speaker.
• The leaders of the House (Chief Minister) and the opposition did not attend the sitting.
• Forty legislators (28 percent) were present at the outset and 60 (41 percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leader of PPPP and BAP attended the proceedings.
• Three out of four minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Output 

• Moved by Provincial Minister for labor, the House passed the KP Shops and Establishments (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
• The Chair deferred two government bills due to absence of relevant ministers. These bills were the KP Local Government (Third Amendment) Bill, 2021 and the KP Medical Transplantation Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
• The House adopted a report of Standing Committee on Higher Education, Archives and Libraries.

Representation and Responsiveness  

• The House took up eight out of ten starred questions, while lawmakers asked four supplementary questions.
• Ministers for labor and Housing responded to two calling attention notices (CANs) regarding non-implementation on job quota for family members of deceased employees in health department and demolition of private properties in Swat by district administration.
• A privilege motion of an ANP lawmaker against District Education Officer Mohmand was referred to the relevant committee.
• Another privilege motion of a PTI lawmaker was lapsed due to his absence.
• Five lawmakers debated an adjournment motion for 50 minutes, which urged the provincial government for effective steps to check drug addiction among youth in the province. Minister for labor concluded the debate on it and spoke for 20 minutes.

Order and Institutionalization

• Four lawmakers spoke on points of order for ten minutes.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on Tuesday, August 24, 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 are excepted