ISLAMABAD, August 7, 2020: The Balochistan Assembly did not take up any question related to Home and Livestock Departments due to absence of relevant ministers, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Friday.
Following are key observations of the House proceedings during the second sitting of 24th session:
Members’ Participation
- The House met for an hour and 23 minutes.
- The sitting started at 1712 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
- The Deputy Speaker presided over the sitting for 52 minutes while rest of the sitting was chaired by a member of Panel of Chairpersons.
- The Leader of the House (Chief Minister) did not attend the sitting.
- The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
- As many as 13 MPAs (20%) were present at the outset and 14 (21%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
- The parliamentary leaders of BNP-M, MMAP, PTI and PkMAP attended the proceedings.
- All three minority lawmakers were absent
Output
- Sponsored by an MMAP lawmaker, the House adopted a resolution demanding the federal government to relay the railway track from Bostan to Zhob. Three lawmakers spoke on this resolution for ten minutes.
- Three other resolutions on the agenda remained unaddressed.
Representation and Responsiveness
- None of the starred questions (requiring oral answers) on the agenda were taken up due to the absence of relevant ministers.
Order and Institutionalization
- Eight lawmakers spoke on points of order for 22 minutes.
- Minister for Public Health Engineering pointed out the quorum t 1819 hours following which the Chair ordered the bells to be rung. The quorum was found incomplete upon counting at 1835 hours and the House was adjourned to meet again on August 10, 2020 (Monday) at 1600 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