Press Gallery : Assembly fails to attract CM’s interest

Punjab Law Minister Basharat Raja attends all sittings in two years

LAHORE:

Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar has followed in the footsteps of his predecessor Shahbaz Sharif in attending the provincial assembly sessions.

In the second parliamentary year, Chief Minister Buzdar appeared to have lost interest in the proceedings of the assembly. During the year, the Punjab Assembly held 67 sessions but Chief Minister Buzdar came only five times to attend the proceedings. As a result, his attendance was seven per cent. He addressed a session once, on the approval of the budget.

According to the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat), Buzdar was ranked third among the chief minister in attending assembly sessions. Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan was first with 33% attendance and Sindh CM Syed Murad Ali Shah second with 31%. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa CM Mahmood Khan was fourth with 6% attendance.

Former chief minister Shahbaz Sharif in his third term had attended the assembly sessions only 19 times during the five years from 2013 to 2018.

On the other hand, Law Minister Muhammad Basharat Raja did not have a single absence from a session during the two years.

Debate on budget 2020-21 to begin in National Assembly today

PML-N member Ajmal Asif from Faisalabad had the lowest attendance. As a result, he did not submit any bill for allowances and other benefits. He also surrendered his room in People's House and it was allotted to PML-N chief whip Khalil Tahir Sindhu. Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan did not come to take oath as member of the assembly for the second year.

The Punjab Assembly had fewer sessions in the second year than in the first due to the coronavirus pandemic. There have been 144 sittings in the two years, of which 77 were held in the first year and 67 in the second.

It passed more laws during the second parliamentary year. In the first year, 27 laws were made, while in the second year 41 laws were approved. During the period, 37 principal laws were enacted in Punjab, which is more than all other provinces. The assembly also passed three private bills. Punjab Assembly is the first provincial legislature to pass the Employees Service Act as per a constitutional requirement and also the only one to have held an in-camera session, on the Sahiwal firing incident. In the second parliamentary year, 22 motions were referred to the Privileges Committee for action, as against 11 referred during the previous year. As many as 356 calling attention notices were submitted, of which 78 were entertained. Of the 2,694 questions asked by the lawmakers, 420 were answered. The Zero Hour experiment in the Punjab Assembly has failed. In the first year, 18 notices drew replies and in the second year 30.

In two years, Rs5.1 million was spent on each member of Punjab Assembly, while Rs23.1 million was spent on each member of Balochistan Assembly, Rs13.6 million in Sindh and Rs9.4 million in K-P, the data showed.

An announcement regarding holding of the budget session in a new building could not be implemented due to coronavirus. Now a session in the new building is planned on December 25. Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi laid the foundation stone of the building in 2006 as the chief minister. Now, 14 years later, he is scheduled to chair the first session in the building as speaker.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 24^th, 2020.