ISLAMABAD, December 31, 2018: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan adopted three resolutions on Monday, observes Free and Fair Election Network in its daily fact sheet.

Following are some key observations of the House proceedings during seventh sitting of fifth session:

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for four hours and thirty minutes.
• The sitting started at 1622 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• As many as 23 members (35%) were present at the start and 10 (15%) at the end of the sitting.
• The Deputy Speaker chaired the entire sitting as the Speaker was not present.
• The Leader of the House did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition was present in the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of MMAP, BNP-M, PkMAP and ANP attended the sitting.
• Two out of three minority members were present.

Output                                             

• The House adopted three resolutions urging the federal government to establish a laboratory to check the faulty electricity meters, to provide gas to Aghburg area of Quetta and to right off the electricity arears of the people of Makran division. These resolutions were moved by ANP and BAP lawmakers. One resolution congratulating the Federal Government for strictly replying to US in response to its allegation on Pakistan regarding minority rights was withdrawn by the BAP lawmaker.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House debated an Adjournment Motion that was admitted for discussion during fifth sitting of the same session regarding delay in payment of scholarship amount by the federal government.
• The House taken up one Calling Attention Notice (CAN) submitted by a BNP-M lawmaker asking the details of development projects started by provincial government and another CAN submitted by a PkMAP lawmaker regarding the 55 employees of Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation those were removed from service was deferred as the concerned minister was not present.
• Only one out of six questions was taken up as the concerned ministers were not present to answer the questions. Lawmakers asked six supplementary questions as well.
• A BAP lawmaker moved that the House should be given the status of a Polling Station on January 14, 2019 to conduct the by polls for Senate that was accepted.

Order and Institutionalization

• As many as eleven members spoke on six Point of Orders consuming 40 minutes.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• The attendance of 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.