ISLAMABAD, June 7, 2021: The 18th session of Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) was prorogued on Monday after pre-budget debate, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are the key observations of the House proceedings during the 9th and last sitting of the 18th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for four hours and four minutes, however, the proceedings remained suspended for 20 minutes due to prayer break.
• The sitting started at 3:30 pm against the scheduled time of 2:00 pm.
• The speaker presided over the entire sitting.
• The deputy speaker was also present.
• The leader of the House (chief minister) was not present.
• The opposition leader attended the entire sitting.
• As many as 51 (35 percent) legislators were present at the start and 45 (31 percent) at the end of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of ANP, PML-N, MMAP and BAP attended the sitting.
• Three out of four minority members were present.

Output 

• The House deferred a resolution regarding share in National Finance Commission (NFC) Award for erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

Representation and Responsiveness

• The Ministers of local government and law responded to two calling attention notices related to non-refund of amount to traders after cancellation of sugar purchase orders and regularizing the services of 20 staff members at Gaju Khan Medical College (GKMC) Swabi.
• The House continued debate on forthcoming budget and fourteen lawmakers spoke on it for an hour and 20 minutes.
• The House did not hold debate on price hike and unemployment in the province.
• The House admitted an adjourned motion regarding heavy fines to transporters and businessmen in the name of violations of COVID-19 SOPs.
• The House took up five out of six starred questions. In addition, the lawmakers asked three supplementary questions.

Order and Institutionalization

• The session was prorogued sine die.

Transparency

• ‘List of Business’ 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 the observation of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly proceedings conducted by United Rural Development Organization (URDO) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions excepted