ISLAMABAD, September 19, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Punjab transacted its entire agenda amid low attendance of lawmakers in the House on Thursday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.
Following are key observations of the House proceedings during third sitting of the 14th session:
Members’ Participation
- The House met for three hours and 30 minutes. However, proceedings remained suspended for 34 minutes due to prayer break.
- The sitting started at 1657 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
- The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was also present during the proceedings.
- The Leaders of the House and the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
- As many as 80 MPAs (22%) were present at the outset and 85 (23%) at the adjournment of the sitting
- The parliamentary leader of PPPP attended the proceedings.
- As many as three out of eight minority lawmakers attended the sitting.
Output:
- The Provincial Minister for Law presented the University of Mianwali Ordinance, 2019; the Punjab Public Private Partnership Ordinance, 2019; the Punjab Medical Teaching Institutions (Reforms) Ordinance, 2019 and the Punjab Probation and Parole Service Ordinance, 2019. All these Ordinances were referred to the relevant standing committees with the directions to report back to the House within two months.
- Moved by the Provincial Minister for Law, the House passed the Punjab Alternate Dispute Resolution Bill, 2019.As many as three lawmakers including the Provincial Minister for Law spoke on it for 30 minutes.
- The House passed three motions granting extension of 60 days each to Standing Committees on School Education, Primary and Secondary Health, Labour and Human Resource for presenting their reports.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The Minister for Revenue & Colonies (Board of Revenue) Department responded to seven out of 31 starred questions while the lawmakers asked nine supplementary questions as well.
- A privilege motion of a PTI lawmaker was referred to Special Committee which was related to functioning of Finance Committee of Punjab Assembly.
- The Minister for Law responded to two Call Attention Notices (CANs) related to murders of a nurse in Gujranwala and PPPP office bearer in Rawalpindi. These CANs were moved by PTI and PML-N lawmakers respectively.
Order and Institutionalization
- As many as 25 lawmakers spoke on points of order consuming 52 minutes of the proceedings.
- A PML-N lawmaker pointed out quorum at 1857 hours which was found complete upon counting after ringing of the bells for five minutes.
- The quorum was pointed out again at 1910 hours by another PML-N lawmaker and it was found complete upon headcount.
- The House was adjourned to meet again on September 20, 2019 (Friday) at 0900 hours.
Transparency
- ‘Orders of the Day’ and attendance of the lawmakers is available on the website of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab.
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