ISLAMABAD, March 14, 2022: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) took up its entire agenda and witnessed introduction of two government bills, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Monday.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during the 3rd sitting of 21st session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for two hours and ten minutes.
• The sitting started at 02:20 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
• The deputy speaker presided over the entire proceedings in the absence of speaker.
• The leaders of the House (chief minister) and the opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 40 MPAs (28 percent) were present at the outset and 49 (34 percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• Parliamentary leader of ANP attended the sitting.
• All four minority lawmakers were absent.

Output

• Minister for labor and culture introduced two government bills which were the KP Child Protection and Welfare (Amendment) Bill, 2022 and the KP Press, Newspapers, News Agencies and Books Registration (Amendment) Bill, 2022.

Representation and Responsiveness 

• The House took up five out of ten starred questions during the question hour while lawmakers asked three supplementary questions as well.
• The Chair clubbed two identical adjournment motions regarding non-appointment of candidates against posts of Assistant Sub-Inspectors, Tehsildars and Naib-Tehsildars who appeared in exams of KP Public Service Commission three years ago. These motions were sponsored by lawmakers belonging to PTI and PPPP.
• Minister for labor and culture responded to two calling attention notices regarding plan of district government Peshawar to evacuate 200 houses of Christian community residing near Outside Kohati gate and non-promotion of doctors against vacant posts in various cadres of health department.
• Sponsored by an ANP lawmaker, the House debated an adjournment motion regarding terrorist attack at Peshawar mosque on March 4, 2022. Four lawmakers participated in debate consuming an hour and five minutes of the proceedings.
• A privilege motion of PTI lawmaker against Secretary local government was referred to the relevant committee.

Order and Institutionalization

• A lawmaker spoke on a point of order for one minute.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on Tuesday, March 15, 2022 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