NA witnesses decrease in performance of every sector during 3rd year: survey

ASMA RAZAQ

ISLAMABAD: Reforms in budget making process and passage of an effective accountability bill remained unfulfilled agenda of the incumbent parliament, while access to members' attendance and performance is still not available on Parliament new website despite passage of three years.

This was revealed in a survey conducted by Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat) titled 'citizens perspective' released here on Thursday.

The report said that National Assembly witnessed a decrease in performance in every sector of legislative activity during 3rd year, as it met for 15 percent lesser hours in 3rd year as compared to the 2nd year.

"The National Assembly passed 17 percent fewer bills in the 3rd year; while Indian Lok Sabha passed 60 percent more bills than the National Assembly of Pakistan during this period", it noted.

The report said that 21percent fewer questions asked by MNAs in the 3rd year, while only 28 percent of the questions submitted by MNAs were answered by the Executive.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC)-a top parliamentary watchdog-remained most active committee of the parliament with 56 percent increase in number of meetings held during the third year.

About Upper House of the parliament, the report said that working days increased in the Senate, but working hours decreased 15 percent over the three Parliamentary years.

It noted that the prime minister attended 95 percent of the sittings of the National Assembly compared to only 5 percent sittings of the Senate of Pakistan.

According to the report, the Senate passed an average of 13 bills per year in 3 years compared to 20 bills on average passed by the 13th National Assembly; the Indian Lok Sabha passed 38 bills on average, while Rajya Sabha passed an average of 44 bills per year in comparison.

Senator Prof Khurshid Ahmed (KP, JI) topped the list of vocal senators in the Senate in 3 years with a total speaking time of 60 minutes each year, followed by Mian Raza Rabbani-a PPP senator and Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar of PML-N both of whom have a total time of 50 minutes each year.

Weak oversight of the Parliament on crucial areas such as national security and foreign policy remains another area of concern.

Analysis of the 3rd year of the National Assembly's performance shows that in almost every sector of the legislative activity, the National Assembly witnessed a decrease in performance from that of last year.

The survey says that the presence of the Prime Minister in the Senate remained poor. In 2008-2009, the Prime Minister did not attend even a single sitting of the Senate while he attended two sittings during 2009-2010 and six sittings during 2010-2011. This means that the Prime Minister's attended 0 percent meetings in the 1st Parliamentary year, 2 percent meetings in the 2nd year and 5 percent in the 3rd year in the Senate of Pakistan.