ISLAMABAD, June 21, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Punjab continued general discussion on provincial annual budget amid low attendance of lawmakers on Friday and 18 lawmakers participated in it, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during Seventh sitting of the 10^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for two hours and 13 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1031 hours against the scheduled time of 0900 hours.
• The Speaker did not attend the sitting.
• The Deputy Speaker presided over the entire sitting.
• The Leader of the House and the Leader of Opposition did not attend the proceedings.
• The Finance Minister attended the proceedings for an hour and 30 minutes.
• As many as 40 MPAs (11%) were present at the outset and 26 (9%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leader of PRHP attended the proceedings.
• As many as three out of eight minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Eighteen lawmakers –  PTI (8), PML-N (7), PPPP (2) and an independent lawmaker – participated in debate for an hour and 43 minutes.
• Provincial Minister for Finance spoke five minutes on the annual budget for the year 2019-20.

 Order and Institutionalization

• Nine lawmakers raised Points of Order consuming 14 minutes of the proceedings.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on June 24, 2019 (Monday) at 1500 hours.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available on Assembly’s website.
• Information on Members’ attendance is available on Assembly’s website.
  

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The daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Punjab Assembly proceedings conducted by PATTAN Development Organization – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are regretted