TIB for end to parliament boycott culture, calls for enacting law

Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) demanded Tuesday immediate enactment of a law as the culture of boycotting parliament sessions had broken all past records during the 9th parliament.
Unveiling its latest report, the local chapter of the Berlin-based Transparency International (TI) said the level of parliament boycott by the main opposition had reached nearly 82 per cent during the 9th parliament.
The percentage of boycott by the opposition members was 59.79 during the eighth parliament, 42.67 during the seventh and 33.75 during the fifth parliament, the research report said.
It said the highest attendance rate in the 9th parliament was maintained by a parliament member from Narsingdi-3 constituency (417 sittings or 99.76 per cent) and the lowest by the then opposition chairperson (only 10 days or 2.39 per cent).
 "It's very alarming that opposition lawmakers stayed away from the House for 342 days out of 418 days during the just concluded 9th parliament," TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said, adding that the culture of boycotting Jatiya Sangsad (JS) has broken all-time records.
The programme marking the launch of the report called Parliament Watch, prepared by TIB, was held at CIRDAP (Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific) auditorium in the capital yesterday.
Dr Zaman said the government has to formulate a new Act fixing the maximum timeframe of continued absence by a lawmaker at 30 days, instead of 90 days, to ensure their attendance at parliament and make it more effective.
The TIB research report 'Parliament Watch' was prepared covering the activities of all sessions of the ninth Jatiya Sangsad.
Presenting the report, the TIB Executive Director said each of the lawmakers received financial facilities during the parliamentary sessions (Tk 3,558 per person per day). "Based on that calculation, the expenditure against parliament boycott by the opposition members of parliament (MPs) stood at more than Tk 48.67 million during the 9th parliament," he said.
Dr Zaman added the 10th parliament in a sense was the "House without opposition".
TIB trustee M Hafizuddin Khan said the current parliament has no opposition in real sense as the nation has not found yet any sign of strong opposition in a 'particular party' which is in the government.
According to the report, a total of 222 hours and 36 minutes were wasted between the first and the nineteenth sessions because of quorum crisis. It caused a loss of Tk 1.04 billion to the state exchequer.
"Thirty-two minutes were wasted on an average on every working day due to quorum crisis, and the nation had to spend Tk 78,000 a minute during the parliament sessions," the report said.
It said lawmakers spent only 8.2 per cent time (109 hours and 44 minutes) for enacting laws during the immediate-past parliament when a total of 271 bills, including three private ones, were passed by the House.
Lawmakers spent 1331 hours and 54 minutes in 418 sittings from the first to the 19th session. Although the main task of lawmakers is to make laws, the TIB study found they spent only 12 minutes on an average to pass a law in parliament.
 "Some 20 per cent of the laws were passed in less than five minutes by the previous parliament," the report said mentioning that lawmakers in India spent 30 per cent of the total time to pass a law in 2012, while it was 55 per cent in the UK in 2009-10.
On the parliamentary bodies, the report said 53 standing committees and 183 sub-committees have so far held 2043 and 650 meetings respectively and made over 4935 recommendations, of which 43.17 per cent was implemented by the ministries concerned.
According to the report, 21.80 per cent of the total time (289 hours and 57 minutes) were spent on budget discussions and nine per cent of the lawmakers (32) did not take part in any of those discussions.
It said the immediate-past parliament had witnessed walkout by the opposition and individual lawmakers for 54 times on various grounds. The attendance rate for female members was nearly 46 per cent.
The 9th parliament started its journey on January 25th in 2009, in which the then Awami League-led grand alliance government accounted for 88 per cent seats, the then BNP-led 14-party alliance for 11 per cent and the rest by others.
Of the elected MPs, 57 per cent came from the business community followed by lawyers 14 per cent, retired government officials 10 per cent and others (politicians, teachers and journalists) 7 per cent.