ISLAMABAD, January 2, 2020: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) passed a government bill and left most of the Private Members’ agenda unaddressed due to lack of quorum on Thursday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.
Following are key observations of the House proceedings during fifth sitting of the tenth session:
Members’ Participation
- The Assembly met for two hours and 45 minutes, however, the sitting remained suspended for 36 minutes due to prayer break.
- The sitting started at 1441 hours against the scheduled time of 1400 hours.
- The Speaker presided over the sitting for an hour and nine minutes while rest of the sitting was chaired by a Member of Panel of Chairpersons.
- The Deputy Speaker also attended the proceedings.
- The Leaders of the House and the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
- As many as 61 (42%) legislators were present at the start and 30 (21%) at the end of the sitting.
- The parliamentary leaders of PML and PML-N attended the sitting.
- All four minority members were present.
Output
- Moved by the Minister for Law, the House passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Emergency Rescue Service (Amendment) Bill, 2019.
- The House did not consider a Private Member’s bill and five private resolutions.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The House took up seven out of 12 starred questions appearing on the list while the lawmakers asked six supplementary questions.
- The Minister for Law responded to three Call Attention Notices (CANs) regarding construction of the nursing school and college in Lakki, employment to family members of police martyrs and search operation by police department in various areas of Peshawar.
- Another CAN on the agenda was deferred until next sitting on request of the concerned Minister.
- The Chair admitted an Adjournment Motion (AM) regarding NFC Award for debate in later sitting.
- The debate on another AM scheduled for today was not held.
- An ANP lawmaker withdrew his Privilege Motion after satisfactory response by the concerned Minister.
Order and Institutionalization
- As many as three lawmakers spoke on two Points of Order consuming eight minutes of the proceedings.
- A PTI lawmaker pointed out quorum at 1722 hours causing the ringing of bells for two minutes but the quorum was found incomplete and later adjournment of sitting to meet again on January 3, 2020 (Friday) at 1000 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