• Session prorogued

ISLAMABAD, March 3, 2022: The Balochistan Assembly adopted four resolutions on Thursday and consumed one-third of its proceedings on points of order, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during fifth and last sitting of 50th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for two hours and 24 minutes.
• The sitting started at 04:05 pm against the scheduled time of 03:00 pm.
• The deputy speaker presided over the entire sitting in the absence of speaker.
• The leader of the house (chief minister) was not present.
• The opposition leader attended the sitting for an hour and 25 minutes.
• As many as 11 MPAs (17 percent) were present at the outset and six (nine percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of  BAP, PNP, MMAP and PkMAP attended the proceedings.
• One out three minority lawmakers was present.

 Output

• The House adopted a resolution authorizing the Parliament to legislate for constitution of Provincial and District Ulema and Mashaikh Council having jurisdiction throughout the country.
• Three other resolutions were also adopted by the House which demanded the government to set up university in Rakshan division, enhance salaries of Balochistan Police and Levies force and exempt the former tribal districts of the province from taxes as per commitment.

.Representation and Responsiveness  

• The House took up four out of ten starred questions while the lawmakers asked three supplementary questions as well.
• A calling attention notice on the agenda was not taken up due to the absence of mover.

Order and Institutionalization

• Twelve lawmakers spoke on points of order (POs) for 47 minutes consuming one-third of the proceedings. These POswere mainly related to law and order and employment issues.
• The session was prorogued sine die.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• The attendance of lawmakers was not available to the observers and media.

This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Balochistan Assembly proceedings conducted by Center for Peace and Development (CPD) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted