ISLAMABAD, February 22, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of the Punjab was adjourned on Friday without holding a scheduled discussion on annual performance reports of the development authorities in major cities of the province, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

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

Members’ Participation

• The Punjab Assembly met for an hour and 21 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1109 hours against the scheduled time of 0900 hours.
• A member from Panel of Chairpersons chaired the entire sitting in the absence of Speaker and Deputy Speaker.
• The Leader of the House and the Opposition Leader did not attend the sitting.
• As many as eight MPAs (2%) were present at the outset and 70 (19%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• None of the parliamentary leader attended the proceedings.
• As many as four out of eight minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The Minister for Schools Education responded to seven out of ten Starred Questions appearing on the agenda while a question was disposed of due to the absence of mover. One question was deferred on mover’s request while a remaining question was not taken up. The lawmakers asked 17 supplementary questions as well.
• The House deferred an Adjournment Motion due to lack of response from the Ministry of Schools Education.
• The House did not hold discussion on Annual Performance Reports of Development Authorities of Rawalpindi, Multan, Gujranwala and Faisalabad for the Year 2012-13.

Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers raised five Points of Order consuming six minutes of the proceedings.
• The entire opposition staged a walk out from the proceedings for 13 minutes against alleged use of derogatory remarks of a treasury lawmaker for a female colleague.
• A PML-N lawmaker pointed out quorum at 1141 hours but it was found complete upon counting after ringing of the bells for five minutes.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on February 25, 2019 (Monday) at 1500 hours.

Transparency

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