NA initiates formation of standing committees

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly Secretariat has initiated the process of forming the standing committees of the National Assembly by soliciting preferences from its members on their committee choices and priorities.

Sources within the National Assembly Secretariat revealed that in the initial step towards forming the standing committees, the secretariat has reached out to the chief whips of parliamentary parties, requesting them to gather preferences and priority lists from their members about the committees they wish to join.

The PMLN has designated Dr Tariq Fazal as their whip, PPP has appointed Ijaz Jhakrani, PTI-backed Sunni Ittehad Council has chosen Malik Aamir Dogar as the whip and Moor Alam serves as the whip of JUI-F in the National Assembly.

The whips of the parliamentary parties have been instructed to collect preferences from their members for 10 standing committees, listing them in order of priority.

This marks the initial phase towards the formation of the National Assembly’s standing committees. Once the parliamentary parties submit their members’ preferences and priorities, the National Assembly Secretariat will determine the distribution of committee memberships among the parties based on their numerical strength and total membership in the lower house of parliament.

The formula for appointing chairpersons of standing committees will be devised considering the numerical strength of the parties in National Assembly in consultation with all political parties represented in the assembly.

Sources within the National Assembly anticipate that the process will take about a month to complete, with standing committees likely to become functional by the middle of next month.

Each ministry of the government will have a corresponding standing committee in the assembly. These committees are tasked with examining bills referred to them by the house and submitting reports to the house. Additionally, they have the authority to scrutinise expenditures, administration, delegated legislation, public petitions and policies of the ministry concerned and its associated public bodies.

In addition to standing committees and domestic committees, the assembly is empowered to constitute select committees on bills and special committees to carry out specific functions as specified in the motion.

The election of members to the standing committees is mandated within a month after the election of the leader of the house.