Taxpayers billed Rs30b for NA’s five years: PILDAT

ISLAMABAD:

The 1,245 hours of deliberations in the National Assembly in the last five years have amassed a bill of approximately Rs30.14 billion with each passing hour costing taxpayers a whopping R24.23 million, a report of a think tank revealed on Thursday.

To add insult to injury, the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) report on the performance of the 15th National Assembly states that democracy’s vulnerability remains alarmingly reminiscent of July 2018.

“The 15th National Assembly has left democracy almost as vulnerable in Pakistan as it was when it was elected on July 25, 2018,” the PILDAT report read. “The National Assembly and our elected representatives have allowed themselves to be used to weaken instead of strengthening democracy in the 5-year tenure.”

Sharing the details of the eye-watering expenditure, the PILDAT said that the 15th National Assembly was only convened for 452 sittings or average 90 sittings per year in the past five years, saying the previous (14th) National Assembly was convened for 495 sittings or on average 99 sittings per year which in itself is not a great performance but it still shows a decrease of 9% in sittings.

The report says that the National Assembly only consumed a total of 1,245 working hours in five years or on average 249 working hours per year which show a 21 per cent decrease in productivity from the previous assembly, which spent 315 working hours per year on average.

“It must be noted that average cost to taxpayers of each working hour in 5 years comes to Rs24.23 million per hour,” it read. It maintains that the 15th NA passed a total of 279 pieces of legislation in its five years with the latest flurry of hasty legislation undermining basic tenets of constitutional scheme of democracy and human rights.

The legislative activity in the 15th lower house of parliament witnessed an increase of 45 per cent over the 192 laws passed during the 14th one.

The 15th NA witnessed two governments: the first from Aug 18, 2018, to April 10, 2022, with PTI Chairman Imran Khan as the prime minister, while the second was formed by a coalition of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) and PPP with PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif as the premier that lasted from April 11, 2022, to Aug 9, 2023.

The PTI government relied heavily on ordinances for the purpose of legislation. Of 75 ordinances laid in the NA in five years, 72 were promulgated by the PTI government. On the other hand, only three were promulgated by the coalition government.

According to the PILDAT report, in comparison with the term of the 14th NA when only 38 ordinances were promulgated, a 97 per cent increase was witnessed in their number passed by the 15th one.

The 15th lower house of parliament has passed the largest number of laws in comparison with the previous three assemblies starting from 2002.

Just during the last three weeks of the 15th NA, 73 bills were passed. Of them, it said, 36 or 49 per cent were not referred to the parliamentary committees concerned.

The 15th NA has also had the unique experience of the first-ever successful passage of vote of no-confidence in the country’s parliamentary history against a prime minister.

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Even though two previous premiers had faced votes of no-confidence against them, but they were unsuccessful.

The 15th NA also enjoyed a dubious distinction where ex-PM Imran claimed that he used the help of the country’s intelligence agencies to bring his own coalition MNAs to the house to pass laws and even federal budgets.

The 15th lower house of parliament did not work towards any institutional reform during its five-year tenure, PILDAT noted, pointing out that the assembly merely went through the motions of budget scrutiny and passage.

It added that the lower house of parliament had “long-required” serious reforms in utilising its role to propose and effectively scrutinise annual budgets.

During the five years of 15th NA, only 15 sittings were held on an average yearly to discuss the annual federal budgets.

Only 173 members participated on an average annually in budget sessions.

Similarly, the NA only spent 70 hours on budget sessions on an average yearly.

The 15th NA was the first one to not allow the budget approved by the assembly to be changed through a supplementary one under Article 84 of the Constitution.

The PILDAT report read that despite repeated promises, the prime minister’s weekly question hour was not started during nearly four years of Imran’s premiership or even afterwards.

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The assembly members and committees failed to even question and oversee the state’s key policy decisions as well as practices on critical crises that developed during the past five years that included the country’s engagement with the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), conflict with New Delhi over the change of status of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and so-called ‘cypher issue’ among other regional and international concerns.

The PILDAT noted that among the 15 legislatures of the country, this was the 4th one to be able to complete its term. It continued that earlier the assemblies, which completed their five-year term, were elected in 2002, 2008 and 2013.The performance statistics of the 15th NA have not been much different from the data of previous assemblies.

The PILDAT report observed that the biggest show of confidence in the NA came from its own membership in terms of their attendance.

“The prime minister, as the Leader of the House, sets that trend,” it added. However, just 11% and 17% attendance by premiers Imran and Shehbaz in the NA sittings reflected them “voting with their feet in the assembly”, the report stated.

The PILDAT noted that it appeared that successive prime ministers had attached limited importance to the very House that elected them.

As the prime minister, ex-premier Nawaz Sharif did not attend more than 14 per cent sittings of the NA.

Ex-PM Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was present in 19 per cent sittings when he was the premier though these dwarfed in comparison with the 76 per cent (calculated on the basis of three years and three months) attendance of ex-premier Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Former prime minister Imran, therefore, earned the dubious distinction of having the least attendance in the NA over the past 20 years, which had nine premiers during this period.

The average attendance of MNAs in five years of the 15th NA stands at 61 per cent. However, it adds, it stood at 67 per cent before the PTI’s decision to quit the NA.

The report pointed out that despite the high level of attendance documented in the NA records, it was frequently found lacking quorum with 25 per cent presence of lawmakers.