ISLAMABAD, December 14, 2018: The Provincial Assembly of Punjab was prorogued after passing two resolutions on Friday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Friday.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during tenth (last) sitting of the fifth session:

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for an hour and 32 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1100 hours against the scheduled time of 1900 hours.
• The Deputy Speaker presided over the entire sitting in the absence of the Speaker.
• The Leader of the House did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of Opposition attended the sitting for 25 minutes.
• As many as 70 MPAs (19%) were present at the outset and 50 (13%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP and Rah-e-Haq Party attended the proceedings.
• As many as seven out of eight minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

 Output

• The House unanimously adopted a supplementary resolution, jointly moved by lawmakers belonging to treasury and opposition parties, to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the attack on Army Public School (APS) Peshawar in 2014.
• The House also adopted a supplementary resolution felicitating the federal government on its ‘effective response’ to the United States of America (USA) over blacklisting of Pakistan for religious freedom violations.
• The House granted a two-month extension to the report regarding losses incurred to exchequer due to closure of development projects initiated by the government prior to 2008.

 Representation and Responsiveness

• The House held discussion on the Annual Report of the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women for the year 2016. As many as four lawmakers participated in the discussion consuming 18 minutes of the proceedings.

• The Speaker constituted an eight-member Special Committee to propose amendments to Rules of Procedure of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab 1997 regarding issuance of production orders of a detained/arrested lawmaker.
• The House took up only one out of four Starred Questions while remaining three questions were deferred due to absence of relevant minister or mover. These questions were addressed to the ministries of Labour & Human Resource, Food and Population Welfare. The lawmakers asked four supplementary questions as well.

 Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers raised eight Points of Order consuming nine minutes of the proceedings.
• The House was prorogued sine die.

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.