Overview of 43rd Session of The National Assembly
Overview of 43rd Session of the National Assembly
The Finance Bill, 2022 was the only government bill introduced during the session on June 10 and was passed on June 29. Out of 17 sittings held during 43rd session, the bill was discussed in 14 sittings and the discussion spread over 45 hours and 7 minutes in these actual budget sittings. Out of 342 members house, only 87 or 25.43% MNAs took part in federal budget discussion in which 61 (18%) were male and 26 (8%) were female and spoke only for 29 hours and 46 minutes. 255 (75%) MNAs did not participate in the budget discussion, for which the main reason could be resignations of PTI MNAs. The remaining MNAs of PTI spoke for 5 hours and 16 minutes (18%) during the budget session. Last year, 246 or 71.92% MNAs participated in the budget discussion and to the average of 190 or 55.55% for the budget sessions during the past 4 years.
17 bills were passed by the National Assembly during 43rd session including the Finance Bill, 2022.
PILDAT has strong advocated that changes are required to strengthen effective use of the most crucial powers of the Parliament for federal budget process. These changes are as follows:
1. Amend Article 84 of the Constitution which currently allows government to authorize supplementary grants without seeking prior Assembly approval
2. Amend the Public Finance Management Act 2019 to obligate the Federal Government to share Budget Strategy Paper with Standing Committees of the National Assembly and the Senate on Finance before its final approval by the Federal Cabinet
3. Amend Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly to give powers to standing committees to review budget after its presentation in the Assembly
4. Amend the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly to obligate the Federal Government to present a Quarterly Report on the execution of the budget passed by the Assembly
5. Increase the time to debate/scrutinize budget in the Standing Committees & the National Assembly
The list of the Bills passed during the session is given in Appendix C.
No Government bill was introduced while 6 Private Members bills were introduced.
No Ordinance was laid while 1 Ordinance, the General Statistics (Re-Organization) (Amendment) Ordinance, 2022, was extended for further 120 days during the session on Tuesday, June 21. It was enacted on February 23, 2022. Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) was working as an attached department of Ministry of Finance, Economic Affairs, and Privatization & Statistics at the time of promulgation of the Act, 2011. In pursuance of Cabinet decision on April 4, 2019, the PBS was transferred as an attached department of Ministry of Planning, Development & Special Initiatives on abolition of Statistics Division.
