Nocturnal NA Budget Session Went on With Few Lawmakers

The nocturnal budget session on June 21 displayed a desolated look of the national assembly (NA) as only 16 lawmakers were present in the lower house to debate on the finance bill for the fiscal year 2021-2022.

Among them, only 2 were sitting on treasury benches while the remaining 14 were on the other side of the aisle.

For maintaining minimum quorum, one-fourth, 86, of 342 members of the lower house are required to be occupying their seats.

Senior journalist Raheel Nawaz Swati said that the situation showed disinterest of the government and opposition in the budget debate.

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Notably, the continuation of the sitting despite acute low attendance happened with mutual understanding as the opposition members did not point out the attendance in the plenum.

The journalist said that according to rules, the matter of quorum is conditional to the identification.

If there is a consensus between the legislators, the house can continue with its proceedings even with low attendance.

Before each session of the lower house, a meeting of the house business advisory committee is convened by NA speaker.

It includes representatives of treasury and opposition benches and the agenda of the session and timings are mutually decided.

One such meeting was convened by NA Speaker Asad Qaiser on June 14. It was decided that the budget session would continue until June 30.

The committee finalized that the general discussion on the budget would be opened by the leader of the opposition and wrapped by the federal finance minister on June 24.

The finance bill 2021-2022 would be approved on June 29.

It was settled in the committee meeting that there would be no break for questions and call-to-attention notices during the budget session.

Sources said that the government and opposition had a clandestine settlement for not pointing out quorum during the session too.

When it happened in the first

The first time it happened that low attendance wasn’t pointed out during the proceeding was in May last year.

The house discussed the coronavirus pandemic situation in the country.

Nothing new in PTI government

Swati told News360 that the session of the lower house of the parliament has continued despite identification of quorum on many instances during the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.

In response, the opposition walked out of the assembly on multiple occasions.

An interesting instance

Once during a question-answer session in NA, the opposition members learned that Federal Energy Minister Omar Ayub was not present in the house for answers.

At this, the opposition members got furious while the treasury benchers got alarmed over it.

Several government members walked out and then PTI MNA Junaid Akbar pointed out quorum and the proceeding was adjourned.

Complete attendance – practically impossible

Talking to News 360, senior journalist and parliamentary affairs expert Abdul Razzaq Khatti said that it was not possible for all 342 lawmakers to remain present throughout prolong budget sitting.

He added that according to rules, the session must stretch up to 40 hours.

Therefore, Khatti said there is an unannounced consensus between the government and the opposition that the quorum will not be identified.

He added that there is no legislation in the budget session and therefore, the presence of all 342 legislators isn’t mandatory.

The political analysts say that the government and opposition have started taking the budget session causal and the lawmakers just scratch the surface.

They added that legislators should give special attention to the budget session as it is directly correlated with the masses.