The fourth session of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly witnessed the introduction of a bill on right to information, providing for setting up a powerful Information Commission and protecting the whistleblowers against legal, administrative or employment related sanction for releasing information on wrongdoing. The House also unanimously adopted a resolution to condemn the suicide attacks on a church in Peshawar.

Promulgated as an ordinance on August 13, 2013 by the provincial government, it was introduced in the House during the first sitting of the session. However in the fifth sitting the government introduced the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Right to Information Bill 2013 as a 12-member Special Committee with six members each from the treasury and the opposition benches was formed on September 10, 2013 to debate the legislation. The committee was to present its report on the bill within a month.

The House also passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Arms Bill 2013 to regulate the process of getting license for the manufacturing, ownership, sale and repairs of arms. Amending the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Ombudsman Act 2010, the Chief Minister, instead of the Governor, has been authorized to appoint the provincial ombudsman.

The House passed two bills on explosives; one aiming for establishing an Inspectorate of Explosives to regulate the manufacture, possession, use, sale and transportation of explosives in the province and the other seeking death or imprisonment for life for any person who unlawfully and maliciously uses explosive substance to endanger life or property.

The session lasting seven sittings from 10- 18 September 2013 met for 22 hours and 56 minutes. On average, each sitting lasted three hours and 17 minutes.

Since the assembly secretariat does not make the members’ attendance record public, FAFEN observer conducts a headcount of legislators at the beginning, at the end and the time when maximum members are present in each sitting. On average, 33 MPAs were present at the start, 49 at the end and 70 at the time of maximum attendance.

The Speaker and the Deputy Speaker presided over the 30% and 35% of the session’s time respectively. The remaining time was consumed by six breaks of five hours and 56 minutes – 35% of the session time.

The House adopted three of the four resolutions tabled during the session. During the first sitting, the House unanimously passed a resolution to condemn the suicide attacks on Kohati Gate Church in Peshawar, and asked the provincial government to take practical steps for protecting the minorities. It also called upon the federal government to initiate the process of talks to address the decade-old issue of terrorism. The resolution moved by the Minister for Law was backed by all the parties in the House – PML-N, JUI-F, ANP, PPPP, QWP-S, and JIP. Another resolution calling upon the federal government to telecast Aazan five times a day on all TV channels in the country was also adopted.

Fourteen out of 15 calling attention notices on the agenda were taken up. Four notices highlighted issues regarding education, two on real estate and employment and a single calling attention notice each was about natural calamities, sale of substandard goods, health, communications, law enforcing agencies, and the acid and crime bill. The House took up a calling attention notice by a JUI-F legislator on the errors in textbooks.

Five adjournment motions on dengue virus outbreak, rehabilitation of drug addicts, sale of non-registered SIMs, poor result of Frontier Education Foundation colleges and traffic problems caused by trucks parked on a road in Mansehra were taken up by the House.

Members spoke on 10 points of order consuming 34 minutes of the proceedings. All opposition parties staged three walkouts during the session.

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