PM, ministers must answer queries raised by parliamentarians

KATHMANDU, Mar 29: The ministers of the Federal Executive must answer the questions put up by parliamentarians to hold the government accountable. 

According to the chairman of Regulations Drafting Committee of the Parliament Krishna Bhakta Pokharel, Prime Minister and ministers of the government must answer the questions raised by parliamentarians from now onward. He said, “On the other issues raised during the special time, government should answer."

A meeting of the Regulations Drafting Committee of the House of Representative reached this agreement. According to the decision, the first one hour has been allotted for question-answer s in each meeting of the Parliament except for the special cases such as announcement of policy and programs, Presidents and Prime Minister’s address to the nation, said president Pokharel.

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For this, ministers will be given a five days timeline to answer. After implementing this regulation, ministers will be obliged to answer the public issues raised in the parliament. Before this ministers were ignoring the issues raised by the parliamentarians.

They will ask their queries orally or in writing and ministers also will respond in the recommended format. The office of Secretariat of the House of Representatives will schedule ministers to give answers in every meeting of the parliament.

Parliamentarians will directly ask the questions to the Prime Minister in the parliament twice a month in the first meeting of the first and third week of the month. For this maximum 10 parliamentarians can ask questions a day.

Those who will ask the questions should register his name at the Secretariat of House of Representatives. The parliamentarians must finish his queries within a minute after the speaker’s call.

There has been a practice that questions are directly asked to the PM in the Parliament of Britain and Canada.