ISLAMABAD, January 09, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Punjab witnessed the introduction of a government bill on occupational safety and health on Wednesday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

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

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for an hour and 57 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1231 hours against the scheduled time of 1100 hours.
• The entire sitting was presided over by a member of Panel of Chairpersons in the absence of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker. Currently, the Speaker is acting Governor of Punjab.
• The Leader of the House did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for 21 minutes.
• As many as 80 MPAs (22%) were present at the outset while 32 (9%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP and Rah-e-Haq party attended the proceedings.
• As many as three out of eight minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Output

• The Minister for Law introduced the Punjab Occupational Safety and Health Bill, 2019. The referral of the bill to the relevant standing committee, as required under Rule 94 of the Rules of Procedure of the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab, was deferred as the House has not yet constituted its standing committees.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House deferred a PTI lawmaker’s Adjournment Motion (AM) regarding illegal sale of a public college’s land in Faisalabad due to delay in response from the relevant ministry.
• Special Committee-I presented a report on a bill referred to the committee by the House. The House also granted 30-day extension to the committee for another report.
• The House took up one out of four Starred Questions while three questions were disposed of due to absence of the movers. These questions were addressed to the ministries of Agriculture, Excise, Taxation & Narcotics Control and Law & Parliamentary Affairs.
• The House took up four Zero Hour notices raised by PML-N lawmakers. The Ministers for Excise and Housing, Urban Development & Public Health Engineering responded to these notices.

 Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers raised 49 Points of Order consuming 65 minutes of the proceedings.
• The entire opposition staged a 26-minute walkout in solidarity with the journalists who were protesting against the behavior of Minister for Information.

• A PML-N lawmaker pointed out the lack of quorum twice; however, it was found complete on headcount on both instances.

• The House was adjourned to meet again on January 10, 2019 (Thursday) at 1100 hours.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available on the Assembly’s website.
• Information on Members’ attendance is available on the Assembly’s website.

The daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Punjab Assembly proceedings conducted by PATTAN Development Organization – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are regretted.