ISLAMABAD, February 18, 2020: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan left its entire agenda unaddressed and discussed law and order situation in the province, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Tuesday.
Following are key observations of the House proceedings during first sitting of the 20th session:
Members’ Participation
- The House met for four hours and 22 minutes, however, the proceedings remained suspended for 37 minutes due to prayer break.
- The sitting started at 1640 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
- The Speaker presided over the sitting for two hours and two minutes while rest of the proceedings was chaired by the Deputy Speaker.
- The Leader of the House attended the sitting for an hour and six minutes.
- The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for one hour.
- As many as 11 MPAs (17%) were present at the outset and nine (14%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
- The parliamentary leaders of BAP, BNP, BNP-M, ANP, HDP, MMAP and PkMAP attended the proceedings.
- One out of three minority lawmakers attended the proceedings.
Output
- The House did not consider two reports of the standing committees and six audit reports appearing on its agenda.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The Chair deferred the question hour due to absence of the concerned ministers.
- The House discussed an Adjournment Motion (AM) jointly moved by MMAP, BNP and PkMAP lawmakers regarding recent incident of a bomb blast in Quetta and overall law and order situation in the province. As many as 18 lawmakers participated in a discussion on supplementary AM for three hours and 14 minutes.
Order and Institutionalization
- Four lawmakers spoke on Points of Order consuming nine minutes of the proceedings.
- The House was adjourned to meet again on February 21, 2020 (Friday) at 1500 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