ISLAMABAD, April 20, 2021: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan referred four bills to the relevant standing committees and deferred a private member’s resolution due to the absence of its mover, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Tuesday

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during the first sitting of 36th session:

Members’ Participation 

• The House met for an hour and 35 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1635 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• The speaker presided over the entire sitting while the deputy speaker was also present.
• The leaders of the house (chief minister) and the opposition were present.
• As many as 29 MPAs (45%) were present at the outset and 18 (40%) at the adjournment of sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of JWP, BNP-M, HDP AND MMAP attended the proceedings.
• One out of three minority lawmakers were present.

Output 

• The House witnessed introduction of four government bills which were referred to the relevant standing committees for further deliberations. These bills were the Balochistan Minimum Wages Bill, 2021; the Balochistan Bonded Labor (Abolition) Bill, 2021; the Balochistan Child Employment (Prohibition and Regulation) Bill, 2021 and the Balochistan Payment of Wages Bill, 2021.
• The House deferred a private member’s resolution due to absence of the mover which demanded to declare Turbat city as dry port.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Minister for mines and minerals responded to a call attention notice (CAN) regarding the compensation to the families of coal mine workers who died in two separate incidents in the province during last month.
• Minister for finance responded to another CAN regarding development funds of Rs. 600 billion approved for various districts of Balochistan.
• The House took up four out of nine starred questions while lawmakers asked two supplementary questions as well.

 Order and Institutionalization

• The House was adjourned to meet again on April 23 (Friday) at 12:00 pm.

Transparency

• ‘List of Business’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• Attendance of the lawmakers was not available to media and observers.

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