Boycott of the parliament by the main opposition parties has been on the rise since the reintroduction of parliamentary democracy in Bangladesh in 1991.
The Transparency International, Bangladesh said this in its Parliament Watch report, launched on Tuesday at a press conference at the National Press Club, recommending amendment to the constitutional provision about the cancellation of parliamentary membership for absence from the sessions for 90 sitting days by cutting it down to 30 sitting days.
The report said that the percentage of boycott of sessions was 34 in the fifth parliament (1991–1996), 43 in the seventh parliament (1996–2001), 60 in the eighth parliament (2001–2006) and 74 in the first two years of the existing ninth parliament.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance has boycotted the sessions for 129 sitting days out of the total 135 sitting days between the second and seventh sessions of the ninth parliament, it said.
The report said that the BNP had walked out the house 16 times during its low attendance of 23 days out of the total 135 working days of the parliament.
According to the report, the ninth parliament in the six sessions spent Tk 19 crore just in waiting for the lawmakers to turn up as quorum crisis delayed beginning of the sittings.
On an average, each sitting was delayed by 39 minutes despite the ruling party has two-thirds majority in the parliament.
'Attendance of those who are going to the parliament is also low,' said the TIB executive director, Iftekharuzzaman, after journalists had been briefed about the report.
About Tk 42,000 is spent every minute in parliament working days, the research estimated after calculating quorum crisis delay to be more than 74 hours.
The report said that on an average the ruling party lawmakers attended 66 per cent of the parliament working hours while the opposition lawmakers were below 25 per cent.
Around 51 per cent of the ruling Awami League
lawmakers attended the sessions more than 75 per cent of working days while all the members of the main opposition were present for less than 25 per cent of the days.
Urging the political parties to give up the culture of parliament boycott, TIB chairman, Sultana Kamal, also a former adviser to the caretaker government, said, 'Apparently our political culture suffers from lack of sense of accountability. Once elected, the lawmakers act in a way as if they are out of the question of accountability.'
The corruption watchdog recommended rewarding 10 lawmakers for attending the maximum number of sittings and publishing the names of the 10 who skip it most.
In the sessions, the lawmakers have praised their party leaders 616 times and criticised the opponents 808 times.
They also talked out of context 576 times, the report said.
Source : New Age
