ISLAMABAD, January 24, 2022: The Balochistan Assembly passed two government bills and adopted one resolution on Monday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during third sitting of 49th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for an hour and nine minutes.
• The sitting started at 05:02 pm against the scheduled time of 03:00 pm.
• The deputy speaker presided over the entire sitting in the absence of speaker.
• The leader of the house (chief minister) was not present.
• The opposition leader attended the entire sitting.
• As many as 10 MPAs (15 percent) were present at the outset and 16 (24 percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of JWP, HDP, BAP, MMAP, BNP-A, BNP-M and PkMAP attended the proceedings.
• One out of three minority lawmakers was present.

 Output

• The House passed two government bills including the Balochistan Letters of Administration and Succession Certificates Bill, 2022 and the Balochistan Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2022.
• Another bill- the Balochistan Universities Bill, 2022 – was not taken up.
• The House adopted a resolution recommending the provincial government to contact federal government for decrease in fare of various airlines including PIA operating from Quetta to Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.

Representation and Responsiveness  

• The House took up four out of eight starred questions while remaining questions were deferred due to absence of relevant lawmakers. In addition, one lawmaker asked one supplementary question.
• Minister for education responded to a calling attention notice regarding non-issuance of appointment letters of female teachers under Balochistan Education Support Program.

Order and Institutionalization

• Nine lawmakers belonging to various consistencies of Quetta walked out from the proceedings for ten minutes against violation of merit during appointments in various government departments.
• MMAP and BNP-M lawmakers staged a token walkout from the House against non-consultation of the government with them on a legislative proposal.
• Ten lawmakers spoke on points of order for 38 minutes.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on Thursday, January 27, 2022 at 03:00 pm.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• The attendance of lawmakers was not available to the observers and media.

This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Balochistan Assembly proceedings conducted by Center for Peace and Development (CPD) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted