PILDAT paints dismal picture of assemblies’ performance

Report says legislation, working hours, attendance of CMs declined in third parliamentary year

ISLAMABAD:

The Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) has observed that each of the four provincial assemblies has recorded a decline in legislation, working hours and attendance of chief ministers in their third parliamentary year as compared to the second one.

According to a report on comparative assessment of performance of Pakistan’s four provincial assemblies on Tuesday, the Punjab Assembly has met for the highest number of sittings, 61, during the third parliamentary year in a comparative analysis of sittings held by each of the four provincial assemblies.

However, the sittings of the Punjab Assembly have reduced by about 9% from 67 in year two to 61 in year three.

The Sindh Assembly has met for 57 sittings during the year, declining by 16% from the 68 sittings held in the second parliamentary year.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly ranks third in provincial assemblies in terms of holding sitting. The sittings in year three increased by nearly 6% to 55 from 52 in the second parliamentary year.

The Balochistan Assembly comes in last with 49 sittings during the third parliamentary though it registered an increase of 48% over 33 sittings held during the second year.

During the third year, average working hours per sitting worked out to be 1.42 in Punjab Assembly, 2.13 in Sindh Assembly, 2.4 in K-P Assembly and 2.32 in Balochistan Assembly.

During the third parliamentary year, the allocated budget per working hour is calculated to be Rs25.7 million per working hour in the Punjab Assembly, Rs21.6 million per working hour in Sindh Assembly, Rs17.2 million per working hour in Balochistan Assembly and Rs8.8 million per working hour in the K-P Assembly. In this sense, the K-P Assembly is the most cost-effective provincial assembly followed by Balochistan Assembly and Sindh Assembly with Punjab Assembly being the least cost effective.

The K-P Assembly ranks on the top when compared with other provincial assemblies in terms of 147.02 working hours during the third year. The working hours of the assembly have recorded an increase of about 30% when compared to 113.32 working hours during the second year of the assembly.

During the third year, Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan has attended the highest percentage (29%) of sittings of the provincial assembly followed by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah who has attended 21% sittings. A distant third is Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar who only joined 8% sittings of the provincial assembly. In the last position is K-P Chief Minister Mahmood Khan who has attended only 5% sittings of the provincial assembly.

In terms of the passage of bills, the Sindh Assembly passed 38 bills, followed by Punjab Assembly which passed 34 bills, K-P Assembly 33 bills and Balochistan Assembly 26 bills.

Instead of accelerating their performance on each of the KPIs, the provincial assemblies have shown a declining trend across most, if not all, KPIs. Much like the previous years, little or no initiative has been taken in inviting public input and involvement and enhancing transparency and access for citizens.