ISLAMABAD, August 3, 2019 The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan took up entire agenda on Saturday including introduction of three government bills, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during first sitting of the 15^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for an hour and 17 minutes
• The sitting started at 1647 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
• The Deputy Speaker presided over the entire sitting in the absence of Speaker.
• The Leader of the House did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition remained present during the entire proceedings.
• As many as 12 MPAs (18%) were present at the outset and 25 (36%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PkMAP MMAP, BNP-A and BNP-M attended the proceedings.
• Two out of three minority lawmakers attended the proceedings.

Output

• The House unanimously adopted a resolution urging the Federal Government to issue official passport to Members of the House.
• The Advisor to Chief Minister on Education introduced three bills in the House including the Balochistan Education Foundation (Amendment) Bill, 2019, the Balochistan Private Educational Institutions Registration and Regulatory Bill, 2019 and the Balochistan Board of Intermediate & Secondary Education Bill, 2019. These bills were referred to the relevant standing committee for consideration.
• Standing Committees on Social Welfare and Agriculture presented reports about performance of their relevant departments.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The Chair admitted an adjournment Motion for debate which sought stance of the Federal government about Reko Dik case.

Order and Institutionalization

• A lawmaker spoke on a point of order consuming ten minutes of the proceedings.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on August 5, 2019 (Monday) at 1600 hours.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• Attendance of the lawmakers was not available to the observers and media.
  

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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