ISLAMABAD:
Right after taking the oath of office in August 2018, Prime Minister Imran Khan had promised to empower parliament and to attend the National Assembly sittings at least twice a month to answer lawmakers’ questions.
However, a comparison of the data of the first two-and-a-half-years rule of PM Imran with his predecessor Nawaz Sharif shows that Imran attended fewer sittings than Sharif.
According to the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen), between August 13, 2018 and February 4, 2021, the National Assembly held 28 sessions that comprised 198 sittings.
Imran attended only 21 of these 198 sittings with an average attendance of 10.6%.
However, from June 1, 2013 to December 18, 2015, former PM Sharif attended 37 out of 240 sittings with an average attendance of 15.4%.
In a written response, Fafen revealed that PM Imran attended 15 out of 91 sittings of the National Assembly in the first parliamentary year, 5 out of 86 sittings in the second parliamentary year and one out of 21 sittings in the third parliamentary year.
Political experts believe that while parliamentary attendance is not the focus of public debate very often, the presence of MNAs is central to assembly’s functioning and PM Imran’s scant attendance not only goes against his commitment but makes it the case that he is not leading from the front.
Fafen — a non-governmental organization which provides parliamentary, governance, political and elections oversight – further revealed that Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif — who belongs to the PML-N – attended 52 out of 198 sittings in the same period.
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari attended 64 sittings out of 198 sittings while JUI-F’s parliamentary leader Maulana Asad Mehmood attended 112 out of 195 sittings.
PTI’s MNA from DG Khan, Amjad Farooq Khan Khosa, remained the most punctual among the lawmakers as he attended 188 sittings out of 190 — as of October 29, 2020. PMLN’s Begum Tahira Bukhari and PTI’s Uzma Riaz attended 186 each while PTI’s Lal Chand appeared 166 times till Oct 2020.
The data further revealed that PPP’s MNA Makhdoom Jamil Zaman from Matiari attended only 10 sittings out of the 190, averaging 5%.
PML-N’s Ehsan-ul-Haq Bajwa from Bahawalnagar and PTI’s MNA from Layyah Abdul Majeed Khan Niazi appeared in the NA 20 times; averaging 11%.
Among female MNAs, Ghulam Bibi Bharwana from Jhang attended 56 sittings, Federal Minister for Inter Provincial Coordination Dr Fehmida Mirza from Badin attended 85 sittings while Federal Minister for Defence Production Zubaida Jalal from Kech attended 89 sittings out of 190.
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