ISLAMABAD, June 14, 2021: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan held pre-budget debate and allocation of funds for development schemes to non-elected persons in constituencies of opposition lawmakers, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Monday.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during the first and last sitting of 39th session requisitioned by the opposition lawmakers:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for three hours and 34 minutes.
• The sitting started at 05:16 pm against the scheduled time of 04:00 pm.
• The speaker presided over the proceedings for two hours and nine minutes, while remaining sitting was chaired by a member of panel of chairpersons.
• The deputy speaker was absent.
• The leader of the house (Chief Minister) was not present.
• The leader of the opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as seven (11 percent) legislators were present at the start and 19 (29 percent) at the end of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of MMAP, BNP-M, and PkMAP attended the sitting.
• All three minority members were present.

Representation and Responsiveness 

• The House held pre-budget debate and allocating funds for development schemes to non-elected persons in constituencies of opposition lawmakers. Eight lawmakers participated in debate and spoke for two hours and 37 minutes.

Order and Institutionalization

• The session was prorogued sine die.

Transparency

• ‘List of Business’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• The attendance of lawmakers was 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