Absenteeism in the National Assembly

Another year will pass soon but NA is hardly ready to take measures against lawmakers who constantly skip proceedings.

Another parliamentary year will pass soon but the National Assembly is hardly ready to take punitive measures against lawmakers who consistently and unabashedly skip proceedings, marring the performance of the lower house.

The members perhaps need not worry as the custodian of the house, the National Assembly speaker, is doing a good job of protecting them by not making the attendance record public. And the rest is done by the leader of the house, the prime minister, whose absence provides members with the needed excuse to stay away from the house. Chaudhry Parvez Elahi of the PML-Q, Hamza Shahbaz Sharif of the PML-N and many others have never bothered to represent their constituencies after taking oath.

It is quite paradoxical that those who spent money, time and whatever it takes to reach the Parliament eventually lose interest in this institution after winning elections and taking oath. But despite it all, our politicians are always ready and eager to participate in TV talk shows and mouth off their ‘expert opinions’ on whatever is going on in the country.

Whether this state of affairs is owing to disillusionment from politics, weakness in the system, negligence of party heads or a combination of all three, the issue has been ignored tenaciously. Neither the government nor the members, in their personal capacity (as private members), introduced any proposal seeking changes in rules so that the issue could be addressed.

There is no focus on quality lawmaking. Both the government and the opposition have assigned a select group of lawmakers with different roles. Some MNAs do nothing apart from asking questions, some just raise points of order, some just like calling attention notices and when it comes to giving call for protest, parliamentary leaders jump in so that their names can make it to newspaper headlines.

On the other hand, whenever the prime minister made one of his seven appearances to the house, the treasury benches were packed to capacity. It seems that the party had a policy which allows its members to be absent whenever they want, but they cannot dare to skip the proceedings when the prime minister’s around.

And then people say that the government’s progress on all issues of importance is ‘snail-paced’.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 29^th, 2014.