Foreign affairs: Dismal performance of parliamentary panel

PILDAT report says standing committee met once after Abbottabad raid.

ISLAMABAD:

The National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs has not tabled any report in the past three years and has only met 17 times, according to the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT).

Since the May 2 top-secret US commando operation in Abbottabad, the committee has had only one meeting, which was with the British ambassador to Afghanistan.

In comparison to Pakistan, foreign affairs committees in Indian and British parliaments held 52 and 82 meetings in the corresponding period, respectively.

The report claimed that more than half of the members did not attend the committee meetings with average attendance at 38 per cent. Chairman of the Committee Asfandyar Wali Khan chaired only seven out of 17 meetings.

While the foreign affairs committee did not table any report, the Senate panel presented and published three reports during 2010-2011. The committee in India and the UK presented 12 and 32 reports, respectively.

Leader of his own faction of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Maulana Fazlur Rehman, and Hamza Shahbaz Sharif had a tie for the lowest attendance as both attended only one meeting in three years. Pakistan Peoples Party MNA Fouzia Habib remained the most regular member in the committee meetings as she attended 15 out of 17 meetings.

Hamza Shahbaz told PILDAT that he felt that participation in the meetings was a ‘waste of time’ after parliament was not able to implement its joint resolution on national security passed in October 2008. “The chairman himself is not present to chair the meetings,” he added. He also said that his time is better spent in his constituency.

The average percentage attendance of the members of PPP stood at 55 per cent followed by the PML-N with 36 and PML-Q with 18 per cent.

Foreign affairs committees of parliaments are considered one of the most important panels and keep a check on the foreign policy of their respective countries.



Published in The Express Tribune, July 23^rd, 2011.