ISLAMABAD, March 22, 2022: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan started pre-budget debate on Tuesday, giving an opportunity to lawmakers to highlight their priorities for provincial budget 2022-23, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during the first sitting of 51st session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for two hours and 29 minutes.
• The sitting started at 04:05 pm against the scheduled time of 03:00 pm.
• The deputy speaker presided over the proceedings for an hour and 19 minutes while remaining sitting was chaired by a member of panel of chairpersons.
• The leader of the house (Chief Minister) was not present.
• The leader of the opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as three (five percent) legislators were present at the start and 13 (20 percent) at the end of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of BNP-A, HDP, MMAP, BNP-M, and PkMAP attended the sitting.
• One out of three minority members was present.

Representation and Responsiveness 

• The House started pre-budget debate and five lawmakers – MMAP and BNP-M (two each) and PkMAP (one) – participated in it consuming two hours and 18 minutes of the proceedings.

Order and Institutionalization

• Two lawmakers spoke on points of order for five minutes.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on Thursday, March 24, 2022 at 03:00 pm.

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