ISLAMABAD: The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) may have something to defend in terms of its 100-day performance, but it has completely failed to deliver when it comes to legislative work.

The inordinate delay in the formation of the committees by Speaker Asad Qaiser has almost made parliament non-functional which is evident from the fact that so far the National Assembly during its four sessions since August 13 has not passed any legislation, except the Finance (Supplementary) Bill, 2018, known as a mini-budget. And the government has managed to pull off this “achievement” because under the Constitution, the finance bill, which is also called a “money bill”, is not required to be sent to any committee or to the Senate for approval.

With no legislative work to do, almost all the previous sittings of the lower house of parliament witnessed debates and speeches on insignificant matters, with members continuing their corruption tirades against each other, causing uproar and even scuffles.

On Nov 6, the legislators were allowed to move four private member’s bills in the assembly and the speaker referred them to the committees which don’t even exist.

Salient features of the PTI agenda were expeditious merger of Fata with KP, bifurcation of Punjab province and reconciliation with estranged Baloch leaders

The speaker, who has been struggling to run the house smoothly, is on a tightrope because of the ongoing tussle between the PTI and the opposition parties over the issue of chairmanship of the all-powerful Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and he has stopped the process of formation of the committees due to the opposition’s threat to boycott all the committees if the ruling party does not offer the PAC chairmanship to Opposition Leader and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shahbaz Sharif as per “parliamentary traditions”.

And after the categorical announcement by Prime Minister Imran Khan that the government would never allow Mr Sharif to become the PAC head, it seems unlikely that the speaker would be able to constitute the committee by Nov 26, when the present government will be completing its first 100 days in office.

Leaders from both the sides admit that a deadlock over the issue of PAC chairmanship still persists with no party willing to budge from its stated position.

Under the rules, the speaker is bound to constitute all the standing and functional committees of the house “within 30 days after the election of the Leader of the House (prime minister)”. Since PTI Chairman Imran Khan was elected prime minister on August 18, the speaker had time till September 17 for the formation of over three dozen house committees.

Although there is no restriction on the government in the rules to give the chairmanship of the PAC to the opposition parties, it has been a parliamentary practice and tradition for the past 10 years that the office is given to an opposition member in order to ensure transparency in financial matters.

According to Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry, the federal cabinet in its meeting on November 15 decided that the prime minister would “unveil the 100-day achievements of the government before the nation on Nov 29”.

Some three months before the July 25 general elections, Mr Khan had unveiled his party’s ambitious ‘agenda’ outlining the party’s commitments for starting work within the first 100 days of forming its government after the elections.

The salient features of the agenda were expeditious merger of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, bifurcation of Punjab province and reconciliation with estranged Baloch leaders.

The 100-day agenda, prepared by the Policy Unit of the PTI’s Election Management Cell headed by former chief secretary of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Shahzad Arbab, also contained a plan for introducing a development package for Karachi and a programme for alleviation of poverty, besides a number of steps for the improvement of the economy.

Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2018