ISLAMABAD, April 25, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan adopted a resolution to condemn incident of terrorism at Sabzi Mandi, Hazarganji in Quetta on April 12, says Free and Fair Election Network in its Daily Factsheet on Thursday.
Following are key observations of the House proceeding during first sitting of the 12th session:
Members’ Participation
- The House met for three hours and 57 minutes; however, the proceeding remained suspended for 31 minutes due to prayer break.
- The sitting started at 1712 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
- The Deputy Speaker presided over the sitting for three hours and one minute in the absence of the Speaker while the rest of the proceeding was chaired by a Member of Panel of Chairperson.
- The Leader of the House attended the proceeding for an hour and 40 minutes.
- The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
- As many as 13 MPAs (20%) were present at the outset while 11 (17%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
- The Parliamentary Leaders of JWP, PTI, BAP, BNP, PkMAP and MMAP attended the proceeding.
- As many as two out of three minority lawmakers attended the sitting.
Output
- Moved by HDP lawmaker, the House adopted a resolution to condemn incident of terrorism at Sabzi Mandi, Hazarganji in Quetta on April 12, 2019.
- Four other resolutions on the agenda were deferred.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The House took up seven out of 11 starred questions while four questions were deferred. In addition, the lawmakers asked ten supplementary questions.
- The Chair admitted three identical adjournment motions related to law and order situation for debate on May 3, 2019.
- Minister for Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) responded to a Calling Attention Notice (CAN) regarding distribution of relief goods among drought victims in District Bolan/Kachi. Ten lawmakers including its mover from BNP spoke on it for 59 minutes.
- Sponsored by a PkMAP lawmaker, a BAP legislator responded to another CAN about non-provision of scholarship to the poor students. Three lawmakers also spoke on it for seven minutes.
Order and Institutionalization
- As many as five lawmakers spoke on Points of Order (POs) consuming 23 minutes of the proceeding.
- The House was adjourned to meet again on April 27, 2019 (Saturday) at 1500 hours.
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.