ISLAMABAD August 22, 2017: The Balochistan Assembly transacted most of the business appearing on agenda and deferred question hour due to absence of the mover on Tuesday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

Following are key observations of the proceedings during first sitting of the Assembly’s 43^rd session:

Members’ Participation

• The Balochistan Assembly met for an hour and 30 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1748 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
• The Speaker presided over entire proceedings.
• The post of Deputy Speaker is lying vacant.
• The Chief Minister and Leader of the Opposition were absent.
• Twenty-five lawmakers (38%) were present at the outset and 11 (17%) at the adjournment of sitting.
• The Parliamentary leaders of PkMAP was present.
• Two minority member attended the sitting.
• Sixteen members applied for leave.

Output

• A JUI-F lawmaker presented a report of the standing committee on Finance, Excise and Taxation on the Balochistan Mass Transit Authority Bill,2017 following the adoption of a motion to condone the presentation period of the report to date.
• The Provincial Finance Minister presented an audit report on accounts of Public Sector Enterprises Government of Balochisan for FY 2016-17 in the House.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Three Starred Question appearing on the list were deferred until next session due to absence of the mover.
• The House referred a Privilege Motion to the Committee on Rules of Procedure and Privileges regarding misbehavior of the local security personnel with a lawmaker of PkMAP. Three lawmakers took part in debate on motion consuming 47 minutes of the proceedings.

Order and Institutionalization

• Three lawmakers spoke on as many Points of Order consuming 17 minutes of the proceedings.

Transparency

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

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  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