Daily Times

Upon the conclusion of second year of the 5-year term of the 15th National Assembly, while there has been some improved legislative activity, there remain many worrying signs on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as analysed by PILDAT.

The National Assembly has passed 3 times more bills than in the first year by passing 30 laws in the second year, compared to only 10 laws during the first year. However only 21 of these have been passed by both Houses of Parliament and received Presidential assent to become Acts of Parliament.

Regarding Ordinances despite this increase in legislative activity, the PTI-led Federal Government has more frequently bypassed the Parliament during second year by promulgating 31 ordinances during the year. This is an approximately four and a half times or 343% increase from year 1 when the Government had promulgated only 7 ordinances.

While passage of more legislation by the National Assembly should have been welcomed, the most problematic aspect of this legislative activity, and one that hurts national pride and sovereignty, is that some of this Legislation is not based on National Indigenous Initiatives to Remove Structural and Procedural Weaknesses, and to improve Democratic Governance in Pakistan. Instead, the Federal Government has proposed and passed a number of bills or amendments to existing legislation based on commitments with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the Action Plan agreed with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). This includes laws and amendments relating to State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA), State-Owned Enterprise (SoE) law, and Anti-Money Laundering (AML).

Prime Minister’s Attendance of the Assembly sessions is another KPI, which, at only 19% attendance of the Assembly’s sittings during year one, was already in need of improvement. Unfortunately, in year 2, PM’s attendance percentage has further plummeted by 55% as he only joined 8 out of 89 or a meagre 9% sittings of the National Assembly during the second year. Interestingly, combined average attendance of Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharif and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi during the 5-year term of the previous 14th National Assembly was 14% which is exactly the same as the combined average of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s two-year attendance, and 5 percentage points higher than Prime Minister Imran Khan’s attendance during the second year.