ISLAMABAD, February 04, 2016: The Provincial Assembly of Sindh transacted its entire agenda appearing on “Order of the Day” except three bills during 12th sitting of its 23rd session on Thursday, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

The House unanimously adopted a supplementary resolution to commemorate the World Cancer Day.

Some key observations are as follows:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings

• The Sindh Assembly met for five hours and 26 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1131 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
• Twenty-two (13%) lawmakers were present at the start and 55 (33%) at adjournment of the sitting.
• The Speaker was absent.
• The Deputy Speaker chaired the sitting for five hours and three minutes while a Member of Panel of Chairpersons presided over the remaining proceeding.
• The Chief Minister attended the sitting for two hours and 17 minutes.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for four hours and 45 minutes.
• Parliamentary leaders of PPPP, MQM, PML-N, PML-F and PTI were present.
• Two minority members attended the sitting.
• One member applied for leave.

Output

• Tabled by MQM lawmaker, the House unanimously adopted a joint resolution to commemorate the World Cancer Day.
• Three government bills appearing on the list of business were not taken up which included the Provincial Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2015, the Societies Registration (Sindh Amendment) Bill, 2015 and the Sindh Sales Tax on Services (Amendment) Bill, 2015.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up four out of 22 starred questions appearing on the agenda. In addition, lawmakers asked 22 supplementary questions.
• Five Calling Attention Notices (CANs) were taken up and responded to by the relevant departments. All these notices were about governance issues.
• Moved by Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, the House concluded the debate on motion about Thar situation. Fifteen members spoke on it for three hours and 18 minutes.
• Due to absence of mover, the House did not taken up an Adjournment Motion (AM) regarding non-availability of funds for ongoing development schemes in Karachi.
• The House took up a Privilege Motion (PM) of PPPP lawmaker against the misbehavior of Deputy Commissioner Dadu. The motion was referred to the relevant committee for further consideration.

Order and Institutionalization

• Lawmakers spoke on eight Points of Order consuming 10 minutes of the proceeding.

Transparency

• “Orders of the Day” was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• Information on legislators’ attendance was available to the observers and the public.

To download this factsheet, click here for English – click here for Urdu

This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Sindh Assembly proceedings conducted by Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted.