ISLAMABAD, December 28, 2018: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (PAKP), on Friday, passed two government bills seeking to repeal the Ehtesab Commission and extend provincial laws to Provincially Adimistered Tribal Areas (PATA), observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

Following are some key observations of the House proceedings during seventh sitting of fourth session:

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for two hours and 15 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1114 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
• The Speaker chaired the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was not present.
• The Leaders of the House and the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 39 members (31%) were present at the start and 51 (41%) at the end of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of ANP and PMLQ attended the sitting.
• Two out of three minority members were present.

Output                                             

• The House passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Continuation of Laws in Erstwhile Provincially Administered Tribal Areas Bill, 2018 and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission (Repeal) Bill, 2018. The opposition lawmakers boycotted the voice-vote on both bills.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up eight out of 12 Starred Questions while four questions lapsed due to absence of the concerned members. The lawmakers asked four supplementary questions as well.
• The House admitted two Adjournment Motions, moved by ANP and MMA lawmakers, for discussion on the delay in completion of Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit Scheme and traffic rush in the Peshawar city. The discussion will take place during the next session.
• The Provincial Minister for Law responded to two Calling Attention Notices (CANs) regarding non-implementation on the provincial law prohibiting interest based financial transaction and delay in constitution of the Whistle Blower Protection and Vigilance Commission. The notices were submitted by lawmakers belonging to PPPP and PMLN.

Order and Institutionalization

• As many as two lawmakers spoke on Points of Orders consuming five minutes.

 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