ISLAMABAD, April 25, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Punjab referred five audit reports on previous government’s development projects to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.
Following are key observations of the House proceedings during fourth sitting of the ninth session:
Members’ Participation
- The House met for an hour and six minutes.
- The sitting started at 1248 hours against the scheduled time of 1100 hours.
- The Speaker presided over entire proceedings while deputy speaker did not attend the sitting.
- The Leaders of the House and the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
- As many as 20 MPAs (5%) were present at the outset and 90 (24%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
- None of the parliamentary leaders attended the proceedings.
- As many as two out of eight minority lawmakers attended the sitting.
Output
- The Minister for Law tabled audit reports on five development projects started by the previous government in districts of Gujrat, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan. The House referred these reports to the PAC.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The Minister for Housing, Urban Development & Public Health Engineering responded to four out of 11 Starred Questions while six questions were disposed of and one was deferred due to absence of the movers. The lawmakers asked 21 supplementary questions as well.
- Owing to the absence of the concerned minister, the House deferred an Adjournment Motion (AM) of a PML-N lawmaker seeking debate on increasing trend of drug addiction in Lahore.
- The Minister for Law responded to two Call Attention Notices (CANs) sponsored by PML-N lawmakers regarding incidents of robbery and rape in Kasur and Sahiwal, respectively.
Order and Institutionalization
- As many as 10 lawmakers raised Points of Order consuming 13 minutes of the proceedings.
- The House was adjourned to meet again on April 26, 2019 (Friday) at 0900 hours
Transparency
- ‘Orders of the Day’ was available on Assembly’s website.
- Information on Members’ attendance is available on Assembly’s website.
The daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Punjab Assembly proceedings conducted by PATTAN Development Organization – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are regretted