Balochistan Assembly Passes Finance Bill, Approves 56 Demands for Grants

ISLAMABAD, May 21, 2018: The Balochistan Assembly on Monday passed the Balochistan Finance Bill, 2018 and approved 56 demands for grants, reports Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the proceedings during seventh sitting of the Assembly’s 52nd session:

Members’ Participation

  • The Balochistan Assembly met for 50 minutes.
  • The sitting started at 1618 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
  • The Speaker presided over the entire sitting.
  • The Chief Minister attended the entire proceedings.
  • The Leader of the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
  • Twenty-five lawmakers (38%) were present at the outset and 43 (66%) at the adjournment of sitting.
  • Parliamentary leaders of JUI-F, PML, ANP and MWM were present.
  • None of the minority member attended the sitting.
  • None of the member applied for leave.

Output

  • The House passed the Balochistan Finance Bill, 2018 and approved 56 demands for grants of various government departments. No cut motion was moved on these demands for grants.

Order and Institutionalization

  • Two points of order consumed two minutes of the proceedings.
  • A JUI-F lawmaker walked out of the House at 1701 hours for non-utilization of development grant allocated for his constituency in last budget. He did return to the House till adjournment of the sitting at 1708 hours.

Transparency

  • ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
  • Attendance of Members was not made public.

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.