ISLAMABAD: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly has outranked other provincial assemblies by passing the highest number of bills at the end of the second parliamentary year.

The Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency in its study titled ‘Comparative Assessment of Provincial Assemblies’, however, ranked the KP Assembly as third in terms of holding sittings. It held 52 sessions.

The Sindh Assembly leads by holding the highest 68 sittings, followed closely by the Punjab Assembly which met for 67 days. The Balochistan Assembly met for only 33 days.

Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan Alyani attended 33 per cent of sittings of the provincial assembly, followed by Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah (31pc), Punjab CM Usman Buzdar (7pc) and KP CM Mahmood Khan (6pc).

According to the study, the KP Assembly passed 59 laws, followed by the Punjab Assembly (41 laws), the Sindh Assembly (24 laws) and the Balochistan Assembly (eight laws).

The Balochistan Assembly has the highest per member budget allocation of Rs23.1 million, followed by Rs13.6m per member by the Sindh Assembly, Rs9.4m per member by the KP Assembly and Rs5.1m per member by the Punjab Assembly.

Leaders of the opposition have shown more interest in the assembly proceedings than the chief ministers.

Leader of the Opposition in the Balochistan Assembly Malik Sikandar Khan has attended the highest 70pc sittings, while Hamza Shahbaz has the lowest 10pc attendance of the Punjab Assembly.

No reform has taken place in improving and strengthening budget process in the assemblies.

Days allocated for budget sessions have declined in every assembly, except Punjab Assembly where the total days increased to 13 from 12 in the first parliamentary year.

In addition to the negligible time allotted for scrutiny of budgets, the provincial assemblies have also failed to pass a Public Finance Act which was adopted as a federal law in 2019.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2020