ISLAMABAD, January 14, 2020: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) passed two government bills concerning the vagrancy and protection of women against harassment at workplaces on Tuesday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.
Following are key observations of the House proceedings during 11th sitting of the tenth session:
Members’ Participation
- The Assembly met for two hours and 31 minutes.
- The sitting started at 1549 hours against the scheduled time of 1400 hours.
- The Speaker presided over the entire sitting in the absence of the Deputy Speaker.
- The Leaders of the House and the Opposition did not attend the proceedings.
- As many as 36 (25%) legislators were present at the start and 30 (21%) at the end of the sitting.
- The parliamentary leaders of ANP, BAP and PPPP attended the sitting.
- Three out of four minority members were present.
Output
- Moved by Minister for Law, the House unanimously passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Vagrancy Restraint Bill, 2020. The bill was introduced on January 10, 2020 and was never sent to a committee for review.
- Moved by Minister for Social Welfare, the House passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Protection of Women against Harassment at Workplace (Amendment) Bill, 2020 along with the proposed amendments by PPPP and MMAP lawmakers. The bill was introduced on January 6, 2020 and was never sent to a committee for review.
- Moved by ANP lawmaker, the House adopted a resolution recommending the provincial government to reinstate the terminated staff of the Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The House took up five out of 16 starred questions while the lawmakers asked seven supplementary questions as well. The Speaker referred four questions addressed to the Communication and Works department to the relevant committee due to absence of the concerned minister. The remaining seven questions were deferred as their replies were not received.
- The Ministers for Law and Information responded to four Call Attention Notices (CANs) highlighting issues related to increase in medicine prices, lawyers’ boycott of courts, post-rains rehabilitation work in district Karak, and upgrading Kolachi tehsil as district.
- The House deferred the discussion on a monitoring report concerning the implementation of NFC Awards till an indefinite period.
- As many as six lawmakers participated in the discussion on a question regarding issuance of mining licenses in tribal districts. The discussion continued for 32 minutes.
- The House admitted an Adjournment Motion (AM) for discussion on growing incidence of polio virus in the province. The date for discussion was not announced.
- The Chair deferred a discussion on an AM regarding the decisions made in a meeting of Council of Common Interests (CCI) about KP province.
Order and Institutionalization
- As many as seven lawmakers spoke on five points of order consuming ten minutes of the proceedings.
- The House was adjourned to meet again on January 27, 2020 (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