ISLAMABAD, February 19, 2016: The Provincial Assembly of Sindh took up all agenda items except two government bills during 16^th sitting of its ongoing 23^rd session on Friday, 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 two hours and 58 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1101 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
• Twelve (7%) lawmakers were present at the start and 56 (34%) at adjournment of the sitting.
• The entire sitting was chaired by the Speaker.
• The Deputy Speaker was absent.
• The Chief Minister was absent.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for two hours and 44 minutes.
• Parliamentary leaders of PPPP, MQM, PML-F, PML-N and PTI were present.
• Five minority members attended the sitting.

Output

• Introduced by the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, the House referred the Sindh Payment of Wages Bill 2015 to relevant standing committee.
• Two government bills – the Sindh Workers’ Compensation Bill, 2015 and the Karachi Institute of Technology and Entrepreneurship Bill, 2015 – were not taken up by the House.
• The Minister for Parliamentary Affairs presented two Audit Reports on the Account of Secretary LG Department, Karachi for the Audit Year, 2013-14 and the Assembly Appropriation Accounts of Sindh Government for year 2012-13 before the House. Both reports were referred to the Public Accounts Committee.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up all six starred questions appearing on the agenda. In addition, lawmakers asked 27 supplementary questions.
• Five Calling Attention Notices (CANs) appearing on the list of business of the House were responded to by the relevant departments. All these notices were about governance issues.
• An Adjournment Motion (AM) moved by MQM member regarding out-of-order tube wells in Khairpur was opposed by the government on technical basis and it was termed as “Out of Order” by the Speaker. The process consumed 13 minutes of the sitting time.
• A lawmaker belonging to MQM withdrew his Privilege Motion regarding implementation of a resolution after the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs assured him of action on the resolution. It consumed 12 minutes of the proceeding.

Order and Institutionalization

• Lawmakers spoke on 17 Points of Order consuming 23 minutes of the proceeding.

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.

To download the factsheet in Urdu – click here

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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.