PESAHWAR: There has been a gradual decline in the attendance of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly’s members, including ministers and chief minister, in its sessions during the last four years.

The disclosure was made in a Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) report issued here on Saturday.

On Jan 24, 2017, the provincial assembly amended the relevant laws to increase the salary of its members by more than 300 per cent.

Fafen report says MPAs’ annual attendance drops from 78pc to 58pc

The lawmakers will get the pay raise from July 2016.

Under the amendment to the law, the chief minister’s monthly salary was increased 344.4 per cent from Rs40,000 to Rs200,000, the ministers’ 350 per cent from Rs35,000 to Rs180,000 each, and MPAs’ 344.44 per cent from Rs18,000 to Rs80,000.

According to the Fafen report, the average annual attendance has fallen from 78 per cent in the first parliamentary year to 58 per cent in the current fourth parliamentary year.

Similarly, the average session attendance registered a decrease from 97 per cent in the first session to 59 per cent in the last (22nd) session. The session’s attendance remained the lowest during the 21st session when only 50 per cent lawmakers attended a sitting on average.

The provincial assembly convened 22 sessions until Feb 15, 2017, and held 219 sittings during that period.

Of the current 123 members, their average attendance in a sitting remained 80 (65 per cent).

Also, on average, each member attended 139 (63 per cent) sittings.

The analysis of the official attendance record available on the website of the provincial assembly reveals that women lawmakers were more regular than their other counterparts. Similarly, the minority lawmakers also attended more than 80 per cent sittings of the assembly.

The party-wise pattern of the lawmakers’ attendance show that the members belonging to the Jamaat-i-Islami were more regular than other parties as 57 per cent of them attended more than 160 (73 per cent) sittings during the reporting period.

The percentage of other members was 50 in case of QWP-S and 47 per cent in case of the JUI-F. Similarly, this percentage further dropped to 36 and 31 in case of PTI and PML-N lawmakers respectively.

The 10 most regular members included seven women and a minority lawmaker.

These were the lawmakers, who attended 88 per cent or more sittings during the span of 22 sessions.

On the other hand, the 10 members, who attended 40 per cent or fewer sittings, included Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and revenue minister Ali Amin Gandapur.

When contacted, spokesman of the provincial government Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani said PTI chief Imran Khan and Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had also noticed the absence of the ministers and MPAs from the assembly proceedings.

“Imran Khan has issued instructions to all ruling MPAs and ministers to ensure their presence in the assembly unless any valid reasons for absence,” he said.

Mr. Ghani said from the next assembly session convened on Monday onwards, the presence of treasury members and ministers would be ‘satisfactory’.

Speaker of the Assembly Asad Qaisar has repeatedly issued directions to the government to ensure its members presence in the house.

The low attendance of the members, mostly of the ruling parties, causes a lack of quorum in the house and leading to adjournment.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2017