ISLAMABAD: The Senate St­­a­­nding Committee on Par­lia­me­n­tary Affairs has approved an am­­endment to the Elections Act, 2017 removing the word ‘Fede­rally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata)’ from the law, according to a handout from Senate.

The amendment was necessitated after the 25th constitutional amendment which merged the erstwhile Fata with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The handout said the proposed amendment was approved by the Senate Secretariat after the committee’s meeting headed by PPP’s Taj Haider.

The committee was informed that the amendment was necessary after the merger of tribal districts with KP and it was supported by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the federal government.

The committee was told that a proposal for more amendments in the law was under process and that it would be appropriate if consolidated amendments be made in the Act through a government bill.

Amendment was needed after tribal areas’ merger with KP

The committee decided that despite the bill being under process, it would be appropriate to immediately pass the amendment to remove the mention of Fata from the law.

While taking up the matter of proposed recommendations rela­t­­ed to the Public Sector Develop­ment Programme (PSDP) for the parliamentary affairs ministry for the next fiscal year (2023-24), the committee was informed that no PSDP project had been proposed.

The committee members recommended the ministry consider including projects like a referen­­ce library for the parliamentarians with a research cell to provide support for house business.

The committee also recommended a comparative study to review such facilities in foreign parliaments and adopt the best version in Pakistan.

The Senate body also discussed upcoming elections and directed the ECP to give a presentation on its preparedness for the polls in the next meeting.

The committee stressed the need to highlight bottlenecks so that it could make recommendations to resolve them.

The matters related to local body elections in Sindh were also discussed at the meeting attended by senators Abida Mohammad Azeem, Kamran Murtaza, Syed Waqar Mehdi and senior officers of the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and its attached departments and agencies.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2023