ISLAMABAD, January 27, 2016: The Provincial Assembly of Sindh on Wednesday transacted most of its agenda appearing on ‘Order of the Day’ during 7th sitting of its ongoing 23rd session, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.
Some key observations are as follows:
Members’ Participation in House Proceedings
- The Sindh Assembly met for four hours and 19 minutes.
- The sitting started at 1108 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
- 14 (8%) lawmakers were present at the start and 61 (37%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
- A maximum of 62 (37%) members attended the sitting.
- The Speaker chaired the sitting for 99 minutes while the Deputy Speaker presided over the remaining proceeding.
- The Chief Minister was absent.
- The Leader of Opposition attended the sitting for 94 minutes.
- Parliamentary leaders of PPPP, MQM, PML-N, PML-F and PTI attended the sitting.
- Five minority members attended the sitting.
Output
- The House deferred consideration of the Provincial Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2015 till next sitting following a motion moved by Minister for Parliamentary Affairs. Lawmakers debated this bill for 95 minutes.
- Two government bills – the Societies Registration (Sindh Amendment) Bill, 2015 and the Sindh Sales Tax on Services (Amendment) Bill, 2015 – were not taken up by the House.
- Minister for Parliamentary Affairs presented the 2nd Biannual Monitoring Report on the implementation of National Finance Commission (NFC) Award from January-June, 2015.
Representation and Responsiveness
- The House took up four out of five starred questions appearing on the agenda. Members also asked 19 supplementary questions.
- Four out of five Calling Attention Notices (CANs) were taken up and responded to by the relevant Ministers. All these notices were about governance issues.
- Another CAN moved by MQM member regarding casualties caused by Swine flu in the province was not taken up due to movers’ absence.
- Three members spoke on an Adjournment Motion (AM) moved by MQM member for 25 minutes. The motion was regarding corruption in provincial government departments during FY 2015-16 as disclosed by report of Auditor General of Pakistan.
- The House deferred the discussion on a motion about Thar situation.
Order and Institutionalization
- Lawmakers spoke on five Points of Order consuming six minutes of the proceeding.
- The House debated a Privilege Motion raised by MQM lawmaker for 38 minutes. However, the motion was withdrawn by the member after debate.
Transparency
- “Orders of the Day” was available to the legislators, observers and others.
- Information on legislators’ attendance was available to the observers and the public.
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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.