ISLAMABAD, Nov 18: The National Assembly completed on Tuesday parliamentary approval of an opposition bill to provide for a training and research institute for the country’s mostly inept parliamentarians, which the government too took as a feather in its cap that still remains deprived of a major legal decoration.

The Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services Bill had already been passed by the Senate and, after its unanimous approval by the lower house, needs only a presidential assent to become an act of parliament for the facility to be set up with budget allocations from both houses of parliament, contributions from provincial assemblies and parliamentarians, grants from federal and provincial governments and unspecified national and international agencies, as well as funds to be raised by the institute itself.

Inter-Provincial Coordination Minister Raza Rabbani said that support for the opposition bill in both the Senate and the National Assembly had confirmed the PPP-led “coalition government’s democratic credentials”.

“It shows the government is always ready to support good legislation irrespective of where it comes from,” he said.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Babar Awan, who also agreed to the introduction of three other opposition bills during a private members’ day, said the house was awaiting law-making pending for years and that the coalition would support all “pro-people” legislation.

Privatisation Minister Naveed Qamar, who had a role in the finalisation of the bill’s draft before its passage by the Senate, called the legislation a “joint effort” to provide for a research and training facility for Pakistani parliamentarians while such institutions already existed for military and civil servants.

But, while sharing credit for passage of an opposition-sponsored bill, the ruling coalition’s legislative image remains greatly tarnished by its failure to move in more than seven months of its government to clip the autocratic powers of the presidency assumed by former president Pervez Musharraf and restore all superior court justices sacked by him under his controversial Nov 3, 2007, emergency proclamation.

It was not clear in the bill whether the training for members of parliament and provincial assemblies as well as other parliamentary functionaries would be compulsory or optional.

The functions of the Institute for Parliamentary Services, which will be located in Islamabad with branches in the four provinces, will include maintaining national, provincial and international data, information and statistics to provide to parliamentarians, undertaking research in respect of federal and provincial laws, having a study of international laws to help parliamentarians in law-making, and providing technical assistance and training to parliamentarians and parliamentary functionaries.

Its other functions will be: arrange seminars, workshops and conferences, take measures to develop law-making, maintain a record of all existing acts, ordinances and other enactments in force in Pakistan and in each province, assist parliamentarians and legislative bodies in their efforts to ensure public understanding of the working of parliament, arrange legislative drafting courses with special emphasis on parliamentary practices, manage internship programmes for parliament and provincial assemblies, establish and maintain resource centres for parliamentarians and support parliamentary committees in performing their functions and any other function that may be assigned by parliament or the institute’s board of governors to be headed by the Senate chairman or the National Assembly speaker by rotation for three years.

A private bill authored by PML-Q’s Humayun Saifullah and five other party members which was introduced sought to amend the Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation Act of 2005 to fix a maximum limit of four per cent of the GDP for government borrowings from banks, instead of an ambiguous “prudent limit”.

A bill introduced by PML-Q’s Donya Aziz sought to amend the Pakistan Penal Code to enhance the punishment for unsafe disposal of hazardous waste to a minimum of five years in jail and a fine of one million rupees from the present six months in jail and a Rs1,000 fine.

The same party’s Akram Masih Gill introduced a bill to amend the Constitution to provide for nine additional seats in the presently 100-seat Senate for non-Muslim minority communities.

Privatisation Minister Naveed Qamar assured the house that the government would do “whatever is needed to be done” to help rice growers after several opposition members complained about low price of paddy in the market due to non-provision of credit by banks to rice millers.