Lahore, December 16: PILDAT launched the third year score card for the 15th Provincial Assembly of the Punjab. The MPAs attending the launch of the score card once again demanded an increased role of the standing committees of the Punjab Assembly as the most crucial reform required to improve the performance of the Assembly.

Mr. Ahmad Bilal Mehboob, Executive Director PILDAT gave an overview of the performance of the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab based on a Score Card prepared by using the Toolkit originally developed by Geneva-based Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) which has parliament and provincial assemblies in Pakistan among its members. He highlighted that performance of the third year does not show much variation from the score card of the first two years.

The Provincial Assembly of the Punjab got an overall score of 43% in its evaluation of the performance of the third parliamentary year. This score is identical to the score achieved by the Assembly during the evaluation of its first two completed parliamentary years. The performance of the Punjab Assembly was assessed against the Framework developed by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). The strongest aspect of the Assembly�s performance in the third parliamentary year emerged as the Transparency and Accessibility of the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab which got an evaluation score of 51% while the weakest aspect, like the previous two years remains its Involvement in International Policy with a score of 32%.

This evaluation is based on the valued judgments of an evaluation group consisting of 36 members including 25 Honourable Members of the Punjab Assembly representing various political parties, as well as 11 non-MPAs including journalists, political scientists, senior statesmen, former senior civil servants, lawyers and members of the civil society. The Group was facilitated by PILDAT. This evaluation result indicates that the Assembly performance is somewhat stagnant and is not improving. Usually Assemblies do not change much in a short span of a year and this is what we see in this case as well.

Mr. Mohsin Khan Leghari, MPA (PML;PP-245, Dera Ghazi Khan-VI) a member of the Public Accounts Committee of the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab and the fifth most vocal member of the Assembly during the 3rd year emphasized that democracy can only be strengthened by improving the functions and working of the Assembly. He also stated that the foremost job of MPAs is to legislate. In this regard members should take more interest by meaningful contributions and participation in the proceedings of the Assembly. The honourable member also pointed out that only by empowerment of the standing committees, Assembly can be made an effective institution. He further emphasized the importance of the local government. He was of the opinion that the performance of the Assembly will improve if the local government system is working and the members of the Provincial Assembly can concentrate on the legislation.

Mr. Tanvir Ashraf Kaira, MPA (PPP; PP-112, Gujrat � V) and former Provincial Finance Minister also emphasized the role of the committees in improving the working of the assembly. He cited many examples from the developed legislatures of the world where the committees are very active and the performance of the legislatures is much improved. Mr. Kaira also said that the research facilities for the MPAs were almost non-existent because of which the performance of the assembly was suffering. He said that the research facilities and more experienced research staff should be hired by the assembly secretariat. Similarly, the new assembly building should be completed as soon as possible because this will have facilities to hold more committee meetings and will contribute towards a better and improved working of the assembly.

Mr. Mujeeb ur Rehman Shami, Editor-In-chief, daily Pakistan, said that it was important that the interest of the common man should be watched in the house. Common persons seem to have lost faith in the assembly as he is led to believe that the assemblies are not his representative and his concerns are not addressed in the assemblies. Mr. Shami also commented that it was imperative that the leader of the house should attend the sittings of the house more regularly. He was of the opinion that the presence of the leader of the house will ensure the participation of the members and the ministers which would contribute positively to the working of the assembly.

Mr. Iftikhar Ahmed, Anchor person Geo Television, said that the democratic institutions should be allowed to work. Deviation from the constitution will only lead to more chaos and will only contribute towards destabilization of the country.

The Provincial Assembly of the Punjab met for 101 days in 6 sessions in the third parliamentary Year from April 9, 2010 to April 8, 2011. The �days of meeting� are calculated, as per the Constitution, by counting the adjournment period of up to two days in between actual sittings as working days. If the adjournment days are discounted, the Assembly met for 72 actual working days in the third parliamentary year as compared to 53 days in year 2 which shows an increase of 35.85%.

The Provincial Assembly of the Punjab met for 237 hours and 22 minutes during 2010-2011 compared to 229 hours and 29 minutes in the second parliamentary year which reflects an increase of only 3.43% in the working hours in the third year. This is interesting and reflects rather poorly on the Assembly performance because despite over 44 % increase in the total number of days from 70 to 101 and a corresponding increase in the Assembly budget under the head of daily allowances of members and related expenses, the working hours registered only a negligible increase of 3.43 %. On the average the House met for 3 hours and 26 minutes daily during its 72 sittings of the third year. During the second year the average duration of each sitting was 4 hours and 20 minutes. This means that the average duration of a sitting decreased by 24 % and almost nullified any anticipated positive impact of increase in the number of working days. The Assembly leadership should carefully analyze this aspect of the Assembly performance and take urgent steps to increase its working hours corresponding to the increase in the minimum working days mandated by the 18th Constitutional Amendment.

Punctuality in the Assembly proceedings remained extremely poor as an overwhelming 95 % sittings started with a delay of more than 10 minutes. This figure was almost the same (96 %) during the second year. In fact the average delay per sitting worsened from 55 minutes during the second year to 72 minutes during the third year � a 31 % deterioration.

During the first two Parliamentary Years of the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab, 42 government bills were introduced. Out of these, 25 bills were passed, and 05 bills were withdrawn. Compared to this, during the third Parliamentary year (2010-2011), 37 government bills were received and 28 were passed. The percentage of Government bills passed during the 3rd parliamentary year increased by 47% from the bills passed during the second year.

2,315 starred questions were received in the third Parliamentary year, which shows a decrease of 32% from the second parliamentary year. 74.9% of these questions were answered while the rest were either disallowed or carried forward. This was in comparison to 43% starred questions answered in the second year. The percentage of starred questions answered, therefore, registered a welcome increase of 58 % during the third year although there is an overall decrease of 32% in the number of questions asked by members. Despite the increase in the mandatory number of working days, this decrease in the number of questions asked by the members is a matter of concern as it may be indicative of the waning interest of the members

During the third Parliamentary year, Standing Committees relating to Government departments held 43 meetings compared to 70 in the second year registering a decrease of 61%. Other standing committees have held 81 meetings in the third year compared to 83 meeting in the second year. The two PACs held 40 meetings during the third year, PAC I meeting for 23 days and PAC II meeting for 17 days. The PACs had held 48 meetings in the second year with both PAC I and PAC II meeting for 24 days each. Two Standing Committees (Committee on Information and Committee on Tourism and Resorts) remained without a chair in the third year as well which effectively means that these committees remained practically non-functional.

As far as the number of meetings held by the Standing Committees related to the government department is concerned, the Standing Committee on Education and Standing Committee on Labour and Human Resources held the maximum number of meetings (i.e., 7 each) during the third year followed by the Standing Committees on Health and Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs which held 4 meetings each. Standing Committee on Agriculture and Standing Committee on Housing and Urban Development held 3 meetings each during the third Parliamentary year. Standing Committees on Irrigation and Power, Local Government and Rural Development, Revenue Relief and Consolidation and the Standing Committee on Social Welfare, Women Development and Bait-ul-Maal met two times each during the third Parliamentary Year. 7 Committees held just one (1) meeting each during the third year. 21 committees (48% of the total standing committees related to government departments) did not hold even a single meeting during the third year.

In contrast to the Committees related to the government departments, the �other� Committees have held relatively more meetings. Committee on Privileges held 35 meetings during the third year compared to 25 meetings during the second year registering an increase of 40% in the third year. The Committee on Government Assurances met 06 times during the third Parliamentary year compared to 10 meetings during the second year. In total the committees other than the Government departments-related committees held 81 meetings during the third year compared to 83- during the second year registering a decrease of 2%.

In an open discussion several participants gave their general views and suggestions for the improvement and strengthening of the Provincial Assembly as a legislative institution. The roundtable was attended by a large numbers of MPAs, scholars of political science, analysts, political parties� officials, senior columnists, media persons, lawyers, youth and assembly staff.

This round table was organized by PILDAT with the support provided by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES).