ISLAMABAD, December 21, 2018: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan adopted three private members’ resolutions and deferred the question hour due to delay in replies of the questions by the government, observes Free and Fair Election Network in its Daily Factsheet on Friday.

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

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for three hours and 37 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1554 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• As many as six members (9%) were present at the start and 18 (28%) at the end of the sitting.
• The Deputy Speaker chaired the sitting for two hours and 54 minutes while remaining proceedings were chaired by a member of the Panel of Chairpersons.
• The Chief Minister attended the sitting for two hours and 18 minutes.
• The Leader of the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PkMAP, BAP, BNP-M, BNP-A and PMLN attended the sitting.
• Only one out of three minority members was present.

Output

• The House adopted three resolutions recommending the federal government to establish a committee to look into the reportedly unfair distribution of funds under CPEC, take Provincial Assembly into confidence over CPEC agreements and ensure fair gas distribution by Sui Southern Gas Pipelines Limited. These resolutions were moved by lawmakers belonging to BNP-M, ANP and independents.
• The House deferred two scheduled resolutions due to absence of the concerned lawmakers.

 Representation and Responsiveness

• The House deferred the Question Hour due to delay by in answers of the questions.
• The House admitted a PkMAP lawmaker’s Adjournment Motion (AM) for discussion on the drought situation in the province during next sitting.
• The House held a discussion on an AM regarding kidnapping of Dr. Ibrahim Khalil. As many as five lawmakers participated in the discussion for 27 minutes.
• As many as four lawmakers spoke for 17 minutes during the Zero Hour about absence of service structure for the employees of Engineering Department.

 Order and Institutionalization

• As many as six lawmakers raised Points of Orders consuming 13 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.