ISLAMABAD, November 22, 2021: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) passed two government bills on Monday and was adjourned amid lack of quorum, observes Fee and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.
Following are key observations of the House proceedings during the 23rd sitting of 20th session:
Members’ Participation
- The House met for an hour and 30 minutes.
- The sitting started at 03:20 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
- The speaker presided over the entire proceedings.
- The deputy speaker was also present.
- The leader of the House (chief minister) was not present.
- The leader of the opposition attended the entire sitting.
- As many as 49 MPAs (34 percent) were present at the outset and 25 (17 percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
- Parliamentary leader of PML-N attended the sitting.
- Three out of four minority lawmakers attended the sitting.
Output
- Moved by minister for law, the House passed the KP Waqf Properties (Amendment) Bill, 2021 and the KP Provincially Administered Tribal Areas Levies Force (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
- The House also witnessed introduction of the KP Appointment of Law Officers (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The House took up eight out of ten starred questions while two questions were lapsed due to absence of relevant lawmakers. In addition, lawmakers asked four supplementary questions.
- The Chair admitted an adjournment motion for debate which was regarding disparity in salaries of employees of attached departments of provincial secretariat. The motion was sponsored by the opposition leader.
- Minister for law responded to two calling attention notices regarding employment issues of the people’s primary healthcare initiative project and travel restrictions being faced by overseas Pakistanis.
- Three lawmakers participated in debate on an adjournment motion regarding inflation and unemployment in country. They spoke on it for 15 minutes.
Order and Institutionalization
- A PTI lawmaker pointed out the quorum at 04:45 pm which was found incomplete upon counting and the House was adjourned to meet again on Friday, November 26, 2021 at 10:00 am.
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