ISLAMABAD, May 23, 2017: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly on Tuesday passed five bills during 14th (last) sitting of its 24th session, says Free and Fair Election Network.
The Speaker orally presented the performance of the House over completion of 100 days of 4th parliamentary year.
Following are some key observations of the sitting:
Members’ Participation
- The KP Assembly met for three hours and 42 minutes.
- The sitting started at 1540 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
- The House had a prayer break for 30 minutes while sitting also remained suspended for 10 minutes due to lack of quorum.
- Thirty lawmakers (24%) were present at the start and 24 (19%) at the end of the sitting.
- The Speaker presided over the entire sitting.
- Deputy Speaker did not attend the sitting.
- The Chief Minister was not present while the Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for two hours and 42 minutes.
- Parliamentary leaders of JI, ANP and PML-N were present.
- One minority member attended the sitting.
Output
- The House passed five bills including the KP Private Schools Regulatory Authority Bill, 2017; the KP Minerals Sector Governance (Amendment) Bill, 2017; the KP Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms (Amendment) Bill, 2017; the KP Health Foundation (Amendment) Bill, 2017 and the KP Consumer Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2017.
- The House adopted a report of Standing Committee on Establishment.
- A bill – the KP Establishment of Information Technology Board (Amendment) Bill, 2017 – was introduced in the House.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The House took up 11 out of 15 Starred Questions for answers during the proceedings. The lawmakers also asked nine supplementary questions.
- The House took up two Call Attention Notices regarding corruption charges on Deputy Commissioner Tank and recruitment of IT teachers and Lab In-charges in education department against sanctioned posts.
Order and Institutionalization
- The lawmakers raised four Points of Order consuming six minutes of the proceedings.
- A PML-N lawmaker pointed out the quorum at 1834 hours which led to the suspension of sitting for 10 minutes.
- A PTI lawmaker pointed out the quorum at 1920 hours which was followed by the ringing of the bells for two minutes. Later on, less than 25 percent of the lawmakers were found to be present upon counting, and the Chair prorogued the session sine die.
Transparency
- ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and other stakeholders.
- The attendance of lawmakers was not available to the observers and media.
This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the KP Assembly proceedings conducted by United Rural Development Organization (URDO) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted