ISLAMABAD, June 19, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan witnessed the presentation of Provincial Annual Budget for the Financial Year 2019-2020 and the Supplementary Budget for the Financial Year 2018-2019 amid opposition’s protest on Wednesday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.
Following are key observations of the House proceedings during first sitting of the budget (14th) session:
Members’ Participation
- The House met for an hour and one minute.
- The sitting started at 1843 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
- The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was also present.
- The Leaders of the House and the Opposition attended the entire proceedings.
- As many as 37 MPAs (54%) were present at the outset and 39 (57%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
- The parliamentary leaders of PkMAP, ANP, BNP-A, BNP-M, MMAP, JWP, HDP and BAP attended the proceedings.
- As many as two out of three minority lawmakers were present.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The Finance Minister presented the Annual Budget for the Financial Year 2019-2020 and the Supplementary Budget for the Financial Year 2018-2019 in the House along with the Finance Bill 2019. The budget speech of Finance Minister continued for 49 minutes.
Order and Institutionalization
- Three lawmakers raised Points of Order consuming seven minutes of the proceedings.
- The entire opposition protested against the presentation of the provincial budget during the speech of the Finance Minister and staged walkout at 1930 hours. They did not come back until adjournment of the sitting.
- The House was later adjourned to meet again on June 22 (Saturday) at 1600 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.