Over one-third of NA agenda goes unattended

Lack of quorum mars 46th session of lower house, forces adjournment of five out of nine sittings

ISLAMABAD: The recently-concluded session of the National Assembly had to leave more than one-third of its agenda items unaddressed because of a lack of quorum

, which forced adjournment of five sittings, the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) said in a report on Monday.

The 46^th session of the Lower House of Parliament during its nine sittings carried out 62% of the business listed on the orders of the day. The remaining, 38%, agenda items were either dropped because of the absence of the ministers concerned or were not taken up at all owing to the lack of quorum.



The National Assembly remained in session from September 11 to 21, with Saturday and Sunday break. Based on the direct observation of the House proceedings, Fafen reported, five out of the nine sittings had to be cut short and adjourned because of the lack of quorum.

During the session, the House passed three bills, referred 10 legislative proposals to the committees concerned, adopted six resolutions, took up five calling-attention notices and held discussions on two motions – regarding violence against the Rohingyas in Myanmar and excessive electricity billing.

Cumulatively, the nine sittings spanned over 21 hours and 42 minutes. On average, each sitting continued for just two hours and 24 minutes. The average attendance during these sittings was 173 or 50%.

The highest attendance of 211 members was recorded in the last sitting while the lowest, of 98, was witnessed during the sixth sitting.

Fafen said an average of 49 would turn up at the commencement of the sitting while 47 would be there at the end of the day when proceedings were adjourned.

The report noted that Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi did not attend any sitting while Opposition Leader Syed Khursheed Shah attended five. Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq attended six sittings and presided over less than a quarter of the proceedings, it added.

Among parliamentary leaders of some 18 parties in the House, the National Party (NP) was represented in all nine sittings while parliamentary leaders of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) did not attend any of the sittings.



All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) leader Sheikh Rasheed attended eight sittings, followed by the leaders of the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP), the Awami Jamhuri Ittehad Pakistan (AJIP), the PML-Zia, and the Pakhtunhkwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) with seven sittings each. Leaders of the Awami National Party (ANP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) attended six sittings each.

The speaker presided over 21% of the proceedings – spanning four hours and 38 minutes – while the deputy speaker was present in seven sittings and chaired 44% of the proceedings – spanning nine hours and 37 minutes. A further 21% of the proceedings – over four hours and 35 minutes – were chaired by members from the panel of chairpersons.