ISLAMABAD, November 19, 2018: The Provincial Assembly of Sindh discussed unannounced power outages in the province on Monday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

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

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for three hours and 46 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1455 hours against the scheduled time of 1400 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the sitting for two hour and 36 minutes while the Deputy Speaker chaired the rest of the sitting.
• The Leaders of the House and the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 47 lawmakers (28%) were present at the outset and 43 (26%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, MQM-P and MMAP attended the sitting.
• As many as six out of nine minority lawmakers were present during the proceedings.

Output

• The Chair deferred the Sindh Press, Newspapers, News Agencies and Books Registration Bill, 2018 on request of the government.
• Moved by MMAP, the House adopted a resolution commemorating the upcoming birthday of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him).
• The House, on a MQM-P lawmaker’s motion, also adopted a resolution paying its tribute to the deceased Ameer Tableeghi Jamaat Haji Abdul Wahab.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The Ministers for Education and Literacy, Health, Prisons, and Transport responded to six Call Attention Notices (CANs) regarding increase in number of HIV patients, availability of rabies vaccine, construction of hospital in Qasba Colony, shifting of Central Prison Karachi, slow process of construction of Girls College in Padiddan, and bribery allegations against Excise Police.
• Moved by an MQM-P lawmaker, the House admitted an Adjournment Motion (AM) regarding shortage of water in Mirpurkhas. The Chair directed to club it with a previous AM on similar issue admitted for discussion on Thursday November 22, 2018.
• The House held discussion on Adjournment Motion (AM) regarding unannounced load-shedding in Sindh. As many as 12 lawmakers participated in the discussion consuming an hour and 31 minutes of the proceedings.
• The House took up four Starred Questions relating to the ministries of Agriculture, and Supply & Prices. The lawmakers asked 23 supplementary questions as well however, the Chair did not allow two of these supplementary questions.

Order and Institutionalization

• As many as two points of order were raised consuming five minutes of the proceedings.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on November 20, 2018 at 1000 hours.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• The attendance of lawmakers was available to the media and observers.

This Daily Factsheet is based on direct observation of the Sindh Assembly proceedings conducted by Pakistan Press Foundation, a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted.