10th parliament comes out of walkout, boycott culture: TIB

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DHAKA, May 17, 2018 (BSS) – Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) today said the 10th Jatiya Sangsad (JS) has come out from the culture of walkout and boycott and the presence of lawmakers in this parliament is higher than the previous one.

TIB disclosed this in a research report titled ‘Parliament Watch’ conducted between 14th and 18th sessions of the 10th parliament.

The report said the presence of lawmakers was 77 percent in the ninth parliament while it is 88 percent in the 10th parliament till now.

The opposition staged walkouts 14 times and boycotted 83 percent working days in the ninth parliament, the report said, adding there was no incident of boycott and walkout in the 10th parliament.

The statistics were placed in a report prepared by the anti-graft watchdog, announced in a press briefing held at TIB’s Dhanmondi office.

Programme Managers of TIB Research and Policy Department Morsheda Akthar and Nihar Ranjan and Assistant Programme Manager Amit Sarker presented the research report.

TIB Trustee Board Chairman Advocate Sultana Kamal, Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman and Programme Manager Juliet Rossetti also addressed the press briefing.

The report said the presence of lawmakers in the 10th parliament from 1st to 18th sessions on an average was 72 percent while the presence of parliament leader was 83 percent while the opposition leader’s 61 percent and the women lawmakers’ 69 percent. The parliament has spent around 31 minutes on an average in order to pass each bill, it added.

There were 76 working days from 14th to 18th session held in 2017. The parliament ran for 260 hours and eight minutes. On an average, the parliament ran for three hours and 25 minute in every working day.

A total of 24 bills were passed in the sessions in 2017 and 26 lawmakers took part in discussions on the bills.

During the period, a total of 900 meetings of 46 parliamentary standing committees out of 50 were held.

Of them, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts held the highest 52 meetings and a total of 16 committees out of 50 published reports.