PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly continues with the practice of hasty legislation though almost half of its members have done a government-sponsored training in the UK meant to build their capacities to effectively contribute to the legislative business.

In its last sitting on Tuesday, the 124-strong house passed five of the six bills within minutes of their introduction by the treasury and that too without debate.

The relevant officials told Dawn that the government had spent millions of rupees on the KP Assembly Members’ Capacity Development Programme carried out in the United Kingdom but the trend of hasty legislation continued.

They said 60 MPAs from the treasury and opposition benches and 13 Assembly Secretariat officers had so far visited the UK for training under the programme.

The officials insisted that the visits meant to acquaint lawmakers with the procedure of legislation in the UK and make them follow it on return but the initiative appeared to be an exercise in futility.

“The provincial exchequer bears around Rs600,000-Rs700,000 each on the visit of MPAs and secretariat staff members to the UK,” an official said.

He said until now, 60 members had visited the UK for their capacity building in legislation, while the rest would follow suit by the end of the year.

The official said the lawmakers went to the UK in groups.

He regretted that in the last sitting of the assembly held on Tuesday, the treasury introduced six bills and five of them were passed within few minutes and that too without discussion.

Among the bills passed were the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Private Schools Regulatory Authority Act, 2017, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minerals Sector Governance (Amendment) Bill, 2017, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical Teaching Institution Reforms (Amendment) Bill, 2017, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Foundation (Amendment) Bill, 2017, and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Consumer Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2017.

Some bills were not on the agenda but were included as additional agenda for passage.

A lawmaker told Dawn that it was astonishing that a bill was tabled and passed within seconds without deliberation.

“We were told in the UK that first a legal team works on a proposed bill before it is referred to a committee. Thereafter, it is brought to the house for debate before it is passed,” he said.

The MPA said in Scotland, he and his colleagues were informed that if they wanted to pass a bill in emergency, even then the entire process of legislation took six months to complete.

“However, here (KP), most lawmakers just sit to endorse their party’s line and don’t know for what purpose a law is passed or amended,” he said.

Deputy Speaker of the assembly Dr Mehar Taj Roghani while chairing the sessions had several times snubbed the members for speaking on an agenda item which under the assembly rules of business they couldn’t do.

She had said that despite visiting UK, they were not learning.

In the last sitting, the hasty legislation infuriated the opposition members, who criticised the treasury members for not implementing the procedures they had learnt during their visit to the UK.

Expressing concern over passing the bills in haste, leader of the opposition Maulana Lutfur Rehman had urged the treasury to take the legislation seriously.

MPA Noor Saleem, who is a member of the steering committee for capacity building of MPAs and assembly staff members, told Dawn that the initiative was not implemented as desired.

“I have heard that the members and assembly staff visited UK only for recreation,” he said.

The lawmaker said no change had been seen in the house’s proceedings though half of its members went to the UK for capacity building.

He said many amendments had been introduced to the important laws passed by the provincial assembly, including the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act, 2013, and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission Act, 2014, as such laws were passed in the assembly without debate.

Speaker Asad Qaisar was not available for comments.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2017