ISLAMABAD, January 30, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of the Balochistan discussed drought situation across the province and demanded the federal government to declare drought-hit areas as calamity affected, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Wednesday.

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

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for an hour and 49 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1610 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• The Speaker chaired the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was not present in the proceedings.
• The Leader of the House did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as 16 MPAs (25%) were present at the outset while 20 (31%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of BNP-A, PkMAP and MMA attended the proceedings.
• Two out of three minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up two out of ten questions while four questions each were deferred due to absence of relevant ministers and unsatisfactory reply.

• As many as seven members participated in debate on drought issue in Balochistan and demanded the federal government to declare drought-hit areas as calamity affected. The discussion continued for an hour and 25 minutes.
• Submitted by a PkMAP lawmaker, the House admitted an Adjournment Motion for debate which was regarding the recent blast in Lora Lai.
• The House deferred the general debate on the establishment of medical colleges in Khuzdar and Lora Lai.
• The House did not discuss an Adjournment Motion regarding road accidents on Highways due to reckless driving.

Order and Institutionalization

• As many as five lawmakers raised four Points of Order consuming eight minutes of the proceedings.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on January 31, 2019 at 1500 hours.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ is/is not available to the legislators, observers and others.
• The attendance of lawmakers is/is 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.