Sindh PA leaves 50 percent agenda unaddressed due to movers’ absence

• Session prorogued

ISLAMABAD, September 27, 2021: The Sindh Assembly left half of its agenda unaddressed on Monday due to the absence of relevant lawmakers, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during the eighth and last sitting of 23rd session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for two hours and 15 minutes; however, the proceeding remained suspended for 10 minutes due to prayer break.
• The sitting started at 03:15 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
• The speaker presided over the proceedings for 56 minutes while the remaining sitting was chaired by the deputy speaker.
• The leaders of the House (Chief Minister) and the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 23 MPAs (14 percent) were present at the outset and 10 (six percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, MQMP, TLP and MMAP attended the proceedings.
• Five out of nine minority lawmakers attended the proceedings.

 Output 

• Introduced by Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, the House passed the Sindh Arms (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
• The Chair referred two bills to the relevant committees after their introduction in the House which were the Sukkur IBA University (Amendment) Bill, 2021 and the Provincial Motor Vehicles (Second Amendment) Bill, 2021.

 Representation and Responsiveness 

• The House did not consider five questions related to irrigation department due to absence of their movers.
• Five calling attention notices lapsed due to the absence of movers while one was deferred owing ministerial absence.
• Two identical adjournment motions regarding hike in prices of petroleum and gas were clubbed and nine lawmakers debated it for an hour and 16 minutes.

Order and Institutionalization

• PPPP lawmakers protested for nine minutes during the proceedings against remarks of a GDA lawmaker about their leadership. Later, GDA and MQM lawmakers reciprocated and walked out of the House at 04:45 pm. They did not return to the House till adjournment of the sitting.
• The session was prorogued sine die.

 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 Sindh Assembly proceedings conducted by Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN). Errors and omissions are excepted