ISLAMABAD, October 29, 2018: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa addressed the private members’ agenda on Monday including six resolutions, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

Following are some key observations of the House proceedings during tenth sitting of third session:

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for two hours and 46 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1100 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
• As many as 48 members (39%) were present at the start and 49 (43%) at the end of the sitting.
• The Speaker chaired the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was also present.
• The Chief Minister did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders ANP and PMLN attended the sitting.
• As many as two out of three minority members were present.
• A newly elected lawmaker belonging to ANP took oath and signed the roll of members.

Output                                             

• The House adopted four private members’ resolutions recommending to the federal government through the provincial government to compensate to the owners of land used for Shah Maqsood Interchange of Hazara Motorway, take necessary measure to resolve the issue of blocked NICs of Pashtuns, repatriate the Pakistani prisoners languishing in jails in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), and send a multi-party jirga to KSA to address the problems faced by Pakistani laborers and pilgrims in the kingdom. These resolutions were moved by PML-N, ANP, MMA and PPPP lawmakers.
• The House also passed two supplementary resolutions empowering the Speaker to constitute Committees and appoint their chairpersons without holding elections and urging the federal government to issue life-term blue passports to the members of Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. These resolutions were moved by PPPP and ANP lawmakers.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The Ministers for Irrigation, Law and Finance responded to six out of seven starred questions appearing on Orders of the Day while one question lapsed due to absence of the concerned lawmaker. The lawmakers asked five supplementary questions as well.
• The Speaker ruled out two adjournment motions, moved by PTI and PPPP lawmakers, regarding the performance of Educational Testing and Evaluation Authority. The Chair directed constitution of a special committee to investigate the matter.
• The House took up three Calling Attention Notices regarding fire incident in University of Science and Technology Abbottabad, exemption for Malakand from sales tax on PTCL Broadband Internet service and closure of a government college in Dir. The Ministers for Finance and Communication & Works and Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Special Education responded to these notices.
• The Minister for Finance laid the Audit Report on the Accounts of Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Appropriation Accounts, Financial Statements, Audit Report of Revenue Receipts and Audit report on Public Sector Enterprises for the year 2015-16. The reports were referred to the Public Accounts Committee for its review.

Order and Institutionalization

• As many as four lawmakers spoke on the point of orders for 10 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