ISLAMABAD, February 12, 2016: The Provincial Assembly of Sindh left most of its agenda unaddressed amid protest by opposition parties during 13th sitting of its 23rd session on Friday, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.
Some key observations are as follows:
Members’ Participation in House Proceedings
- The Sindh Assembly met for three hours.
- The sitting started at 1107 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
- Three (2%) lawmakers were present at the start and 54 (33%) at adjournment of the sitting.
- The Speaker chaired the sitting for one hours and 37 minutes while The Deputy Speaker presided over the remaining proceeding.
- The Chief Minister attended the sitting for an hour and 52 minutes.
- The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for two hours and 15 minutes.
- Parliamentary leaders of PPPP, MQM, PML-F and PTI were present.
- Three minority members attended the sitting.
- Two members applied for leave.
Output
- The House did not take up any of the four government bills appearing on the agenda. These included the Sindh Payment of Wages Bill, 2015, the Sindh Workers’ Compensation 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 six out of nine starred questions appearing on the agenda. In addition, lawmakers asked 24 supplementary questions.
- Five Calling Attention Notices (CANs) appearing on the list of business of the House were taken up and responded to by the relevant departments. All these notices were about governance issues.
- An Adjournment Motion (AM) sponsored by PML-N member regarding death of children due to shortage of food in Thar was disposed of by the House. Four members spoke on it for 17 minutes.
- The House took up a Privilege Motion (PM) moved by PML-F lawmaker regarding non-implementation on a resolution passed by the House.
Order and Institutionalization
- Lawmakers spoke on 18 Points of Order consuming 22 minutes of the proceeding.
- The Opposition lawmakers except PTI protested within the House for four minutes against the Chair’s ruling on Adjournment Motion sponsored by PML-N regarding death of children in drought hit Thar as “Out of Order”. The proceeding of the House remained suspended for 23 minutes due to protest.
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.
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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.
