ISLAMABAD, April 22, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Punjab referred seven legislative proposals including the Punjab Local Government Bill 2019 to the standing committees on Monday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during the first sitting of the ninth session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for an hour and 11 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1722 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was also present.
• The Leaders of the House and Leader of the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 56 MPAs (15%) were present at the outset and 180 (49%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PRHP and PPPP attended the proceedings.
• As many as five out of eight minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Output

• The House referred the Provincial Employees’ Social Security (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019.and the Punjab Zakat and Ushr (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019 to the relevant standing committees. These ordinances were laid in the House by the Minister for Law.

• The Minister for Law also introduced the Punjab Local Government Bill 2019, the Punjab Village Panchayats and Neighborhood Councils Bill 2019, the Punjab Minimum Wages Bill 2019, the Alternative Dispute Resolution Bill 2019 and the Punjab Animal Health Bill 2019. These bills were also referred to the relevant standing committees with the direction to report back to the House within two months.

 Representation and Responsiveness

• The Ministers for Food responded to four out of 12 Starred Questions while five questions were disposed of due to absence of their movers and three remained unaddressed. The lawmakers asked eight supplementary questions as well.
• The House did not take up three Call Attention Notices (CANs) due to protest during the proceedings,

Order and Institutionalization

• As many as two lawmakers spoke on Points of Order for two minutes.
• The PML-N lawmakers staged a protest during the proceedings for 13 minutes against an unsatisfactory reply by the government.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on April 23, 2019 (Tuesday) at 1100 hours

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available on Punjab Assembly’s website.
• Information on Members’ attendance is available on Punjab Assembly’s website.

The daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Punjab Assembly proceedings conducted by PATTAN Development Organization – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are regretted.