ISLAMABAD, November 13, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) passed two government bills amid protest by the opposition, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Wednesday.
Following are some key observations of the House proceedings during first and last sitting of the ninth session:
Members’ Participation
- The Assembly met for 59 minutes.
- The sitting started at 1511 hours against the scheduled time of 1400 hours.
- The Speaker presided over the entire sitting.
- The Deputy Speaker did not attend the proceedings.
- The Leaders of the House and the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
- Fifty-nine legislators (41%) were present at the outset and 52 (36%) at the end of the sitting.
- The parliamentary leaders of ANP, PML-N, PPPP, PML and BAP attended the proceedings.
- Three out of four minority lawmakers were present.
Output
- Introduced by the Minister for Minerals, the House passed the KP Minerals Sector Governance (Amendment) Bill, 2019.
- The Minister for Law introduced the KP Local Government Second (Amendment) Bill, 2019 which was also passed by the House. He also introduced the Muslim Families Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2019 and the KP Panagah Bill, 2019 in the House.
- The Minister for Law presented the annual report of the Provincial Ombudsman for the year 2017.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The Chair administered oath to the newly-elected lawmakers of PTI and BAP.
- The House referred a Privilege Motion of a PTI lawamker against the Inspector General Police to concerned standing committee.
- Moved by the Minister for Law, the House adopted a motion under Rule 240 of the Rules of Procedure to use the Assembly’s Chamber for the elections against a vacant seat in Senate on November 26, 2019.
Order and Institutionalization
- Five lawmakers spoke on Points of Order for ten minutes.
- The entire opposition protested on floor of the House for 15 minutes against passage of supplementary legislative business without referring it to the concerned standing committees.
- The session was prorogued sine die.
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