ISLAMABAD, January 6, 2020: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) held the first reading of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Civil Administration (Public Service Delivery and Good Governance) Bill, 2020 while two government bills were deferred on the treasury’s request, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Monday.

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

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for two hours and 19 minutes, however, the sitting remained suspended for 30 minutes due to prayer break.
• The sitting started at 1506 hours against the scheduled time of 1400 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting in absence of the Deputy Speaker.
• The Leader of the House did not attend the proceedings.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as 40 (28%) legislators were present at the start and 35 (24%) at the end of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leader of PPPP attended the sitting.
• All four minority members were present.

Output

• The Minister for Information Technology introduced the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Civil Administration (Public Service Delivery and Good Governance) Bill, 2020.
• The House deferred the consideration of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Panahgah Bill, 2019 and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace (Amendment) Bill, 2019.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up nine out of 15 starred questions appearing on the list while the lawmakers asked six supplementary questions.
• The government responded to two out of three Call Attention Notices (CANs) regarding provision of facilities at Pak-Afghan border in Torkham and missing ventilator machines in Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar. Another CAN remained unaddressed due to the mover’s absence.
• The Chair referred three Privilege Motions to the relevant standing committee. Two of these motions were moved by a PTI lawmaker while one was sponsored by PPPP lawmaker.
• The House discussed an Adjournment Motion (AM) regarding Council of Common Interests’ (CCI) decisions concerning KP. One lawmaker participated in the discussion for six minutes while the debate would continue tomorrow (Tuesday).

Order and Institutionalization

• As many as three lawmakers spoke on two Points of Order consuming five minutes of the proceedings.
• The women MPs belonging to opposition parties walked out of the proceedings for 28 minutes against the government for unsatisfactory reply to a question.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on January 7, 2020 (Tuesday) at 1400 hours.

 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