ISLAMABAD: The lawmakers of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly had the least interest in discussing various features of the Finance Bill, 2017 during the budget session, as 78 members did not contribute anything to the debate, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its session report.
The KP finance minister tabled the Finance Bill, 2017 during the first sitting of the 25th budget session held between June 7, 2017, and June 16, 2017.
The House passed the Bill during 6th sitting after holding a discussion on the provincial budget for 16 hours and 27 minutes.
The assembly approved 59 demands for grants for the year 2017-18 and rejected 722 cut motions on them, while 53 Supplementary demands for grants for the year 2016-17 were also approved by the House by setting aside 196 cut motions on them.
Seventy-eight lawmakers (63 per cent of the current membership – 123) did not contribute to the budget debate.
Sixteen of them were female legislators and 62 were male lawmakers. However, the participation of lawmakers in the budget session witnessed improvement as compared to the preceding year when 92 members (75 per cent of the membership – 123) had not contributed to the budget debate.
Among them were 21 female legislators and 71 male lawmakers, said a press release.
During the budget session, none out of 11 female lawmakers of the ruling party, PTI expressed their views on the fiscal document, followed by one each of JUI-F, PML-N, QWP-S, ANP and JI.
Similarly, among 62 male lawmakers who did not take part in the budget debate, 33 belonged to PTI, followed by JUI-F (10), QWP-S (7), PML-N (5), JI and ANP (two each), Independent (2) and PPPP (one).
Of the 45 members who took part in the budget debate, six were females and 39 male members. Two female lawmakers each of JUI-F and PML-N and one each of QWP-S and PTI debated the budget for 86 minutes, while the male lawmakers expressed their views for 928 minutes.
Seventeen male members participating in the budget debate were from PTI, followed by PML-N (8), PPPP and JI (4 each), JUI-F (3), ANP (2) and QWP (one).
The finance minister laid the annual budget statement for the fiscal year 2017-2018; the supplementary budget statement for the year 2016-2017; the authenticated schedule of authorised expenditures for the year 2017-18 and the authenticated schedule of authorised expenditures for the year 2016-17.
The leader of the opposition opened the budget debate in the second sitting and spoke for 70 minutes.
The House passed the KP Finance Bill, 2016 during the 6th sitting while the last sitting witnessed the passing of the KP Private Schools Regularity Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2017.
