Speakers urge Parliament to assert its decision-making, proactive role
Zubair Qureshi
Participants of a seminar “Performance of 4th Year of the 15th National Assembly” Thursday regretted that the National Assembly was becoming irrelevant with every passing day and needed to assert itself as the highest proactive, people’s representative and decision-making forum.
The seminar was organized to brief the media persons and the lawmakers about the performance in the outgoing year. The Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development & Transparency (PILDAT) had organized the briefing. Each year as the National Assembly completes parliamentary year , PILDAT launches a performance report highlighting the strong and weak points during the outgoing period.
Speakers at the briefing included Arifa Noor, Senior Anchor Dawn TV, Hafiz Tahir Khalil, Bureau Chief, Jang Islamabad, Mr. Asif Bashir Choudhry, Secretary, Parliamentary Reporters Association, Mr. Amir Waseem, Bureau Chief Dawn Islamabad, Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, President PILDAT and Ms. Aasiya Riaz.
Presenting an overview of the performance of 15th National Assembly, Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, President PILDAT said that successive leaders have not prioritized Parliament beyond their electorate which is reflected in the lack of relevance of Parliament.
One can partly understand that since delivery of required State services is not effective, MPs use a majority of their time in working as a conduit to facilitate their services. Presenting key statistics from the working of 15th National Assembly in its
