Balochistan Assembly Adjourned due to Lack of Quorum

ISLAMABAD, October 12, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan passed five government bills on Saturday but was adjourned due to lack of quorum pointed out by a government Minister, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during third sitting of the 16^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for an hour and two minutes.
• The sitting started at 1556 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the sitting for 54 minutes while rest of the sitting was chaired by the Deputy Speaker.
• The Leader of the House did not attend the proceedings.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as six MPAs (9%) were present at the outset and nine (14%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of BNP, PkMAP and MMAP attended the proceedings.
• All three minority lawmakers were present.

Output

• The Housed passed five government bills which included the Balochistan Charity Institutions (Registration, Regulation and Facilitation) Bill, 2019; the Balochistan Mental Health Bill, 2019; the Balochistan Education Foundation (Amendment) Bill, 2019; the Balochistan Private Educational Institutions (Registration, Regulation and Promotion) Bill, 2019 and the Balochistan Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Bill, 2019.
• A bill – the Balochistan Housing and Town Plannning Authority Bill, 2019 – was referred to the relevant committee.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Three lawmakers spoke on an Adjournment Motion about prevailing law and order situation in the province for 27 minutes.

Order and Institutionalization

• The Minister for Public Health Engineering pointed out the quorum at 1656 hours which led to the adjournment of sitting after counting.
• Two lawmakers spoke on Points of Order for eight minutes.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on October 15, 2019 (Tuesday) at 1500 hours.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• Attendance of the lawmakers was not available to the observers and media.

This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Balochistan Assembly proceedings conducted by Center for Peace and Development (CPD) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted