ISLAMABAD, February 27, 2020: The Balochistan Assembly left its entire agenda unaddressed on Thursday and was prorogued sine die over lack of quorum, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.
Following are key observations of the House proceedings during fourth (last) sitting of the 20th session:
Members’ Participation
- The House met for two hours and 20 minutes, however, the proceedings remained suspended for 51 minutes due or lack of quorum.
- The sitting started at 1213 hours against the scheduled time of 1100 hours.
- The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was absent.
- The Leader of the House did not attend the proceedings.
- The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
- Only seven MPAs (11%) were present at the outset and nine (14%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
- The parliamentary leaders of MMAP, BNP-M and BNP-A attended the proceedings.
- All three minority lawmakers attended the proceedings.
Output
- The House did not take up three private resolutions appearing on its agenda.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The House did not observe question hour due to absence of the concerned ministers.
Order and Institutionalization
- As many as three lawmakers spoke on Points of Order for ten minutes.
- The treasury lawmakers pointed out the quorum twice during the proceedings. A BAP lawmaker pointed out quorum at 1215 hours which was found complete upon counting. However, it was pointed out again by the Provincial Minister for Food at 1325 hours which led to the suspension of the proceedings for 51 minutes and subsequently prorogation of the session at 1433 hours.
Transparency
- ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
- Attendance of the 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