ISLAMABAD, December 29, 2018: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan partially addressed its scheduled business deferring private members resolutions, on Saturday, observes

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

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for two hours and three minutes.
• The sitting started at 1544 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• As many as 14 members (21%) were present at the start and 23 (35%) 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 BNP-A attended the sitting.
• Two out of three minority members were present.

Output                                             

• The House deferred two resolutions on agenda. The first resolution was moved by a minority lawmaker of BAP rejecting the US allegation that the minorities were not being given the rights in Pakistan and congratulating the Federal Government for giving strict response to US on this. The resolution was deferred on the suggestion by opposition lawmakers that a similar joint resolution should be moved on this. The second resolution urging the federal government to right off the electricity arears due on the people of Makran division was deferred due to absence of mover.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House did not take up an Adjournment Motion regarding delay in payment of scholarship amount by the provincial government as the sitting was adjourned by the Deputy Speaker. The adjournment motion was admitted for discussion in the previous sitting.
• As many as nine members spoke for 45 minutes during zero hour about the problems faced by the fishermen in Gawadar and three members spoke about no compensation amount given to the earthquake affected in district Washak by the Pakistan Disaster Management Authority consuming nine minutes.

Order and Institutionalization

• One member spoke on a Point of Order consuming one minute.

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.