ISLAMABAD, April 22, 2021: The Sindh Assembly on Thursday took up its entire agenda and passed two government bills, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.
Following are some key observations of the House proceedings during the second sitting of the 20th session:
Members’ Participation
- The House met for two hours and 45 minutes.
- The sitting started at 03:15 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
- The speaker presided over the entire sitting.
- The deputy speaker was also present.
- The leader of the house (chief minister) attended the proceedings for an hour and 30 minutes.
- The leader of the opposition attended the sitting for two hours and 19 minutes.
- Forty-nine legislators (29 percent) were present at the outset and 30 (18 percent) at the end of the sitting.
- The parliamentary leaders of TLP, PTI, PPPP, and MMAP attended the proceedings while the leaders of GDA and MQMP did not participate in the sitting.
- Six out of nine minority lawmakers were present.
Output
- The House passed two government bills which were the Sindh Public Finance Administration Bill, 2019 and the Provincial Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
- As many as three lawmakers – PPPP (two) and GDA (one) – spoke on the Sindh Public Finance Administration Bill, 2019. They consumed 15 minutes of the proceedings.
- Members of Standing Committee on Finance, and Transport and Mass Transit presented reports on the Sindh Public Finance Administration Bill, 2019 and the Provincial Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2021 in the House.
- Minister for parliamentary affairs presented budget execution reports of two quarters from July 1, 2020 to September 30, 2020 and October 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020.
- The Speaker announced the assent of Governor to two bills including the Sindh Public Private Partnership (Amendment) Bill, 2021 and the Benazir Bhutto Shaheed University at Lyari Karachi (Amendment) Bill, 2020.
- Sponsored by a PTI lawmaker, the House adopted a supplementary resolution demanding 15 minutes break at the time of prayers during proceedings. Three PPPP and two PTI lawmaker spoke on it for six minutes.
- Moved by Minister for parliamentary affairs, the House passed a motion to defer the entire agenda from Monday (April 22, 2021) to onwards for debate on budget execution reports and pre-budget.
Representation and Responsiveness
- Out of 33 starred questions, the House took up four related to the Department of Finance. Besides, the lawmakers asked 25 supplementary questions.
- The House did not take up an adjournment motion due to the absence of mover. It was regarding hike in prices of electricity through promulgation of the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority Act (Amendment) Ordinance, 2021.
Order and Institutionalization
- Three lawmakers spoke on a points of order (POs) for five minutes mainly related to the census 2017, governance and business of the House.
- The House was adjourned to meet again on Friday, April 23, 2021 at 02:00 pm.
Transparency
- ‘List of Business’ 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 Sindh Assembly proceedings conducted by Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF), a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted