ISLAMABAD, October 17, 2011: The National Assembly met for two hours and 40 minutes during the 11^th sitting of the ongoing session. The sitting which started an hour late witnessed low attendance of Members, with only 46 Members present at the outset and 62 present when the sitting was adjourned.

A total of 36 Points of Order were raised, consuming 66% of the sitting time. However, none of the Point of Order raised by Members attracted the Chair’s formal ruling.

The National University of Modern Languages (Amendment) Bill, 2011 was unanimously passed by the House.

The Prime Minister attended the sitting for 21 minutes, while the Leader of the Opposition was present for 37 minutes. The 11^th sitting witnessed two walkouts by individual Members.

Members’ participation in House proceedings

• The National Assembly met for two hours and 40 minutes.
• The eleventh sitting started at 1800 Hours against the scheduled starting time of 1700 hours. The House proceedings started late by 60 minutes.
• The Speaker and the Deputy Speaker remained absent. The entire sitting was presided over by a Member of Panel of Chairpersons.
• The Prime Minister attended the sitting for 21 minutes, while the Leader of the Opposition was present for 37 minutes.
• The Parliamentary Leaders of the MQM and BNPA were present while the leaders of the MMAP, ANP, PML, PPPS, NPP and PMLF were absent.
• The Chief Whips of PMLN, PML, MQM, ANP and PPPP were present, while those of the MMAP, PPPS, PMLF and NPP were absent.
• A total of 46 (13%) Members were present at the outset of the sitting, while 62 (18%) Members at the end of the sitting.
• 20 Members applied for leave to be absent from the sitting.
• As many as eight out of 10 minority Members were present during the 11^thsitting.

Representation and Responsiveness

• There were two Calling Attention Notices (CANs) on the Orders of the Day. The House took up one CAN.

• Moved by five PMLN Members- four females and one male, the CAN was regarding “non-release of billions of rupees collected for the relief of flood victims last year”, which was directed to the Cabinet Secretariat.
• A total of 20 questions were listed to be taken up during the Question Hour. However, only five questions were put up and responded by the relevant ministries.
• Eight Supplementary Questions were raised in the House during the sitting.

Output

• A total of three bills appeared on the Orders of the Day. The National University of Modern Languages (Amendment) Bill, 2011 was unanimously passed by the National Assembly, while the remaining two were not taken up.
• The Annual report of the National Disaster Management Authority 2010 was presented.

 Order and institutionalization

• A total of 36 Points of Order were raised, which consumed 105 minutes (66% of total sitting time) of the sitting. However, none of the Points of Order raised by Members attracted the Chair’s formal ruling.
• The sitting witnessed two instances of walkouts. On the first instance, a PPPP Member staged a walkout against the conduct of Members of the National Assembly. The walkout lasted 51 minutes. On the second occurrence, a PMLN walked out in protest when he was not given the permission to continue his speech on a Point of Order.

 Transparency

• Orders of the Day were available to legislators, observers and others.
• Information on Members’ attendance was unavailable to observers and the public.
• The Quorum was visibly lacking at various stages during the sitting. However, lack of quorum was not pointed out by any of the Members.

The Daily Factsheet is based on direct observation of the Senate proceedings conducted by Center for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI), a member organization of FAFEN