ISLAMABAD, April 26, 2019: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly discussed the KP Local Government (Amendment) Bill, 2019 on Friday and deferred consideration of another government bill, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during 18^th sitting of the sixth session:

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for two hours and 23 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1437 hours against the scheduled time of 1330 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was also present.
• The Leader of the House did not attend the sitting
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as 49 MPAs (40%) were present at the outset while 59 (48%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of ANP and PML-Q attended the proceedings.
• One out of three minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Output

• The House discussed the KP Local Government (Amendment) Bill, 2019 introduced in the House during the previous sitting and ten lawmakers debated it for 50 minutes. The discussion on the legislative proposal will continue in the next sitting.
• Another bill – the KP Youth Welfare Endowment Fund Bill, 2019 – was not considered by the House.

Representation and Responsiveness.

• The Provincial Minister for Local Government responded to two Calling Attention Notices (CANs) about deputing personnel of Levies force with influential persons and settling land ownership issue with the people residing in forest areas.
• The House did not hold a scheduled discussion on the return of overseas Pakistanis belonging to KP from Middle Eastern countries and its impact on the community.

 Order and Institutionalization

• As many as eight lawmakers spoke on Points of Order consuming 15 minutes of the proceedings.
• The opposition lawmakers protested during the proceedings for five minutes against non-convening the meeting of committee constituted to probe alleged corruption in Billion Tree Tsunami program.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on April 29, 2019 (Monday) at 1330 hours.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ is available to the legislators, observers and others.
• The attendance of lawmakers is 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