PESHAWAR: Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) has observed that the budget session of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly was marked by low interest of lawmakers and 75 per cent of the MPAs remained inactive during the session.

In a statement, the organisation that monitors parliamentary businesses in the parliament as well as four provincial assemblies reported that 92 members (75 per cent of the current membership - 123) did not contribute to the budget debate.

Ten female lawmakers were from PTI followed by JUI-F (three), PML-N and QWP-S (two each) and one each of AJIP, ANP, JI and PPP. Similarly, of the 71 male members not participating in the budget debate, 37 belonged to PTI followed by JUI-F and PML-N (eight each), QWP-S (seven), AJIP (four), JI (three), ANP (two), PPPP (one) and an independent lawmaker.

Of the 31 members who took part in the budget debate, only one was female. The only woman lawmaker from PML-N debated the budget for 15 minutes whereas male lawmakers debated it for 659 minutes.

The minister for finance presented the annual budget 2016-17 as well as the supplementary budget statement for the year 2015-16 during the first sitting.

He took 104 minutes to present the budget. The leader of the opposition opened the budget debate in the second sitting and spoke for 52 minutes.

The assembly passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Finance Bill, 2016 during its sixth sitting and several treasury members left the House when the motion was being moved to pass the bill.

Their absence was also noted by the chief minister who announced to initiate an inquiry against them. The House approved 59 demands for grants for the year 2016-17 and rejected 953 cut motions on them while 50 supplementary demands for grants for the year 2015-16 were approved by setting aside 292 cut motions on them.

The session, comprising eight sittings, started on June 14 and ended on June 24. On average, each sitting started 15 minutes late and lasted two hours and 17 minutes with 47 lawmakers (38 per cent) present at the start and 51 (41 per cent) at the time of adjournment.

The chief minister attended seven sittings for 69 per cent of the proceedings’ time. The leader of the opposition attended six sittings for 77 per cent of the proceedings’ time while the finance minister was present during the entire proceedings of eight sittings.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2016