ISLAMABAD, March 31, 2021: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan deferred question hour due to absence of relevant ministers and also left most of its other agenda unaddressed on Wednesday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during 5th (last) sitting of 35th session:

Members’ Participation 

• The House met for an hour and 35 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1720 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
• A member of panel of chairpersons presided over the entire sitting.
• The speaker and deputy speaker did not attend the sitting.
• The leader of the house (chief minister) was not present.
• The leader of the opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as seven MPAs (11%) were present at the outset and 11 (17%) at the adjournment of sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of MMAP, PKMAP, BNP-M, BNP-A and HDP attended the proceedings.
• One out of three minority lawmakers was present.

Output 

• The House did not consider two statutory reports and a private member’s resolution demanding to declare Turbat city as dry port.

 Representation and Responsiveness

• The House deferred question hour due to the absence of provincial ministers for Communications, Construction and Livestock.
• Minister for Home Affairs responded to a call attention notice (CAN) regarding the murder of a person belonging to Tareen City Nawa Killi allegedly by land grabbers. Three other CANs on the agenda were not taken up.

Order and Institutionalization

• Three lawmakers spoke on points of orders regarding protest of junior teachers’ association seeking 25 percent raise in salaries. During the debate, a lawmaker belonging to MMAP protested for two minutes to express solidarity with teachers.
• The Chair announced to prorogue the session sine die when a lawmaker belonging to MMAP pointed out the quorum at 1855 hours.

Transparency

• ‘List of Business’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• Attendance of the lawmakers was not available to media and observers.

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.