• Session Prorogued

ISLAMABAD, May 7, 2021: The Punjab Assembly consumed major part of the proceeding in points of order and deferred question hour due to absence of relevant minister, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Friday.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during the fourth sitting of the 31st session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for 49 minutes.
• The sitting started at 11:30 am against the scheduled time of 09:00 am.
• A member of panel of chairpersons presided over the entire proceedings in the absence of speaker and deputy speaker.
• The leader of the House (chief minister) and the opposition leader did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 26 MPAs (seven percent) were present at the outset and 34 (nine percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• None of the parliamentary leaders attended the sitting.
• One out of eight minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Output

• Minister for Law laid the performance audit report on District Headquarters Hospital, Mianwali for the audit year 2017-18. It was referred to Public Accounts Committee No. II for detailed review and consideration.

 Representation and Responsiveness

• None of the starred questions (requiring oral answers) on the agenda were taken up due to the absence of relevant minister. These questions were related Ministry of Mines and Minerals Department.
• Moved by a PML-N lawmaker, the house referred an adjournment motion (AM) to the relevant committee which was regarding violation and wrongly implementation of Punjab PPRA rules by a government officer.
• Minister for Law responded to a zero hour notice regarding more than 60 dacoity incidents in a village of Faisalabad. Three other zero hour notices on the agenda were not taken up.

 Order and Institutionalization

• Fourteen lawmakers spoke on points of order for 31 minutes (63 percent of the proceedings’ time) related to absence of government functionaries to answer questions during the question hour.
• The Session was prorogued sine die.

Transparency

• ‘List of Business’ was available on Punjab Assembly’s website.
• Information on Members’ attendance is available on Punjab Assembly’s website.

This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Punjab Assembly proceedings conducted by SANGAT Development Foundation, a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are regretted