ISLAMABAD, March 15, 2022: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) transacted entire business on Tuesday amidst absence of leaders of the house and the opposition, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during the 4th sitting of 21st session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for an hour and ten minutes.
• The sitting started at 02:50 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
• The deputy speaker presided over the entire proceedings in the absence of speaker.
• The leaders of the House (chief minister) and the opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 25 MPAs (17 percent) were present at the outset and 48 (33 percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• Parliamentary leader of all political parties were absent.
• One out of four minority lawmakers was present.

Output

• The House witnessed introduction of two bills including the KP Antiquities (Amendment) Bill, 2022 and the KP Provincial Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill, 2022.

Representation and Responsiveness 

• The House took up five out of seven starred questions during the question hour while lawmakers asked four supplementary questions as well.
• Sponsored by a PPPP lawmaker, the Chair admitted an adjournment motion regarding air pollution in Peshawar and its impact on health of people.
• The House took up two calling attention notices regarding non-payment to medical staff assigned task to conduct corona tests after house-to-house visits and steps for prevention of lumpy skin disease among animals.
• A privilege motion of PTI lawmaker against officials of Forest Department was deferred on the request of mover.

Order and Institutionalization

• Two lawmakers spoke on a points of order for five minutes.
• A lawmaker belonging to MMAP pointed out the quorum at 02:50 pm following which the proceedings remained suspended for ten minutes.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on Friday, March 18, 2022 at 10:00 am.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available for the legislators, observers and the media.
• Attendance of the lawmakers was not available for the observers and the media.

This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the KP Assembly proceedings conducted by the United Rural Development Organization (URDO) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions excepted