Balochistan PA Leaves Entire Agenda Unaddressed

ISLAMABAD, March 28, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan left entire agenda unaddressed on the private member’s day and debated Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) for the ongoing Fiscal Year 2018-19, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Thursday.

Following are key observations of the House proceeding during second sitting of the 10th session:

Members’ Participation

  • The House met for four hours and 47 minutes; however, the proceeding remained suspended for 49 minutes due to prayer break.
  • The sitting started at 1652 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
  • The Speaker did not attend the sitting.
  • The Deputy Speaker presided over the sitting for four hours and 42 minutes while a member of Panel of Chairpersons chaired the sitting for five minutes.
  • The Leader of the House was present for two hours and 14 minutes.
  • The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
  • As many as 25 MPAs (38%) were present at the outset while 34 (52%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
  • The parliamentary leaders of ANP, BAP, PkMAP, HDP, BNP-M and MMAP attended the proceeding.
  • All three minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Output

  • The House did not take up any agenda item appearing on `Orders of the Day’.

 Order and Institutionalization

  • As many 21 lawmakers spoke on points of order for three hours and forty minutes which were mostly related to PSDP allocation in the provincial budget 2018-19.
  • The House was adjourned to meet again on March 30, 2019 (Saturday) at 1100 hours.

Transparency

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