ISLAMABAD, December 18, 2018: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan passed a resolution on Tuesday urging the media houses to reinstate the journalists recently fired from their jobs, observes Free and Fair Election Network in its Daily Factsheet.

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

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for three hours and 46 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1557 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• As many as 35 members (54%) were present at the start and 28 (43%) at the end of the sitting.
• The Speaker chaired the entire sitting.
• The Chief Minister attended the entire sitting.
• The nominated Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PkMAP, BAP, BNP-M, BNP-A and MMAP attended the sitting.
• Only one out of three minority members was present.

Output

Jointly moved by the treasury and opposition lawmakers, the House adopted a supplementary resolution recommending the media houses to reinstate the media workers who had been recently fired from their jobs.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The Provincial Minister for Finance laid the Audit Reports of the Accounts of Government of Balochistan’s Water Supply Department, Quetta and Environmental Developmental Project.
• The House adopted a motion to set up Minority Caucus.
• The House deferred the Question Hour due to delay in answers of the questions. The Speaker directed the concerned ministries to reply the lawmakers’ questions within a week.
• The House admitted a PkMAP lawmaker’s Adjournment Motion for discussion on the kidnapping of Dr Ibrahim Khalil.
• As many as nine lawmakers spoke on the drought situation in the province during Zero Hour consuming an hour and 38 minutes.

Order and Institutionalization

• As many as 19 lawmakers spoke on nine Points of Orders consuming an hour and 41 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