ISLAMABAD, June 29, 2021: The Provincial Assembly of Sindh left 86 percent of its agenda unaddressed mainly due to the absence of movers, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Tuesday.
Following are key observations of the House proceedings during 19th sitting of the 21st session:
Members’ Participation
- The House met for an hour and 12 minutes.
- The sitting started at 03:08 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
- The speaker chaired the entire proceedings.
- The deputy speaker was also present.
- The leaders of the House (Chief Minister) and the opposition did not attend the sitting.
- As many as 38 MPAs (23 percent) were present at the outset and 53 (32 percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
- The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, MQMP, TLP and MMAP were present, while GDA and PTI leaders did not attend the sitting.
- Six out of nine minority lawmakers attended the proceedings.
Output
- The House did not consider ten private members’ bills and four resolutions due to absence of relevant lawmakers.
- A resolution on the agenda was deferred, while two private members’ bills were not taken up in the House due to early adjournment of sitting.
- An amendment to the Rules of Procedure of the Provincial Assembly of Sindh seeking prayer break was referred to the relevant committee.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The House did not consider an adjournment motion and a privilege motion due to absence of relevant lawmakers, while a private motion was not considered.
- Four out of nine starred questions were taken up during the question hour. In addition, the lawmakers asked ten supplementary questions.
Order and Institutionalization
- A lawmaker spoke on point of order for two minutes.
- A PTI lawmaker walked out from the House at 03:49 pm against Chair’s attitude with opposition lawmakers and did not return to the House till adjournment of sitting.
- The House was adjourned to meet again on Friday, July 2, 2021 at 02:00 pm.
Transparency
- ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
- The attendance of lawmakers was not available to the media and observers.
This Daily Factsheet is based on direct observation of the Assembly proceedings conducted by Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF), a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions excepted