ISLAMABAD, November 23, 2015: Starting 71 minutes behind the scheduled time, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly took up entire agenda on list of business amid low attendance of lawmakers on Monday, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

The sitting started at 1511 hours against its scheduled time of 1400 hours with 36 legislators (29%) present at the start and 45 (36%) at the time of adjournment.
The House passed one bill, allowed introduction of another bill and took up two Calling Attention Notices (CANs) appearing on the agenda.

Following are some key observations of the House proceeding:

Members’ Participation in House Proceeding

• The KP Assembly met for 120 minutes
•  The sitting started at 1511 hours against the scheduled time of 1400 hours
•  The House had a prayer break for 29 minutes
•  The sitting was chaired by the Speaker
•  The post of Deputy Speaker continues to be vacant since October 15, 2014
•  The Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition did not attend the sitting
•  Thirty-six lawmakers (29%) were present at the start and 45 (36%) at the end of the sitting
• The Parliamentary Leaders of QWP, ANP, AJIP and PML-N were present
• Two minority members attended the sitting
•  Twenty-one members applied for leave

Output

•  Introduced by Minister for Law, the House passed the Provincial Services Academy (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) (Amendment) Bill, 2015 in 13 minutes.
• The same Minister introduced the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Board of Investment and Trade Bill, 2015.
•  Minister for Religious Affairs presented report on 1st Biannual Monitoring on the Implementation of NFC Award (July-December 2014).

Representation and Responsiveness

• All five starred questions appearing on the agenda for the day were taken up. Three questions were addressed to Department of Elementary & Secondary Education and two to Energy & Power Department. The lawmakers also raised six supplementary questions.
•  Sponsored by ANP lawmakers, the House debated an adjournment motion about survey and relief efforts in the earthquake-hit areas.
•  The House took up two CANs and both were responded to by the Provincial Minister for Elementary & Secondary Education. One notice sponsored by a JUI-F female legislator was about slow pace of construction work on Kohat-Peshawar road and the other submitted by a PML-N member was related to allotment of residential flats to government employees.

Order and Institutionalization

• Two Points of Order consumed ten minutes of the sitting

Transparency

• ‘List of Business’ was available to all members
•  Attendance of Members was not made public

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This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the KP Assembly proceedings conducted by Untied Rural Development Organization (URDO) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted.