• Minister gives policy statement on salaries and allowances of MPs

ISLAMABAD, November 23, 2016: The National Assembly passed the Pakistan National Accreditation Council Bill, 2016 unanimously but could not take up the Public Private Partnership Authority Bill, 2016 due to lack of quorum on Wednesday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the proceedings during fourth sitting of the 37^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The National Assembly met for two hours and 30 minutes.
• The proceedings remained suspended for 39 minutes due to prayer break.
• The sitting started at 1517 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• The Deputy Speaker presided over the entire sitting as the Speaker was not present.
• The Leader of the House (Prime Minister) did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for 45 minutes.
• Forty-five lawmakers (13%) were present at outset while 82 (24%) at adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, PkMAP, JI, PML-Z, PML, APML and QWP-S attended the sitting.
• Four minority members were present.

Output

• Minister for Law and Justice presented reports of the Council of Islamic Ideology for the years 1978-79, 1980-81, 1981-82, 1982-83, 1983-84, 1991-92, 1992-93, 1997-98, 1998-99, 1999-2000, 2000-01, 2001-02, 2002-03, 2003-04, 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07, 2007-08, 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12. Two lawmakers, including the Law Minister, spoke for six minutes.
• The House passed the Pakistan National Accreditation Council Bill, 2016 unanimously.
• The Public Private Partnership Authority Bill, 2016 was not taken up.

Representation and Responsiveness

• As many as nine out of 33 Starred Questions were responded to by the government. The lawmakers also asked 12 Supplementary Questions.
• The House took up a Calling Attention Notice on the encroachment on CDA’s land while another notice on the Temporarily Displaced Persons of South Waziristan was not addressed.
• Minister for Finance, Revenue, Economic Affairs, Statistics and Privatization gave policy statement on the salaries and allowances of Members of the Parliament, Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Senate and Ministers.

Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers spoke on five Points of Order consuming 14 minutes of the sitting.
• A PPPP lawmaker pointed out quorum at 1753 hours that led to the adjournment of the sitting.

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 National Assembly proceedings conducted by Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN). Errors and omissions are excepted.