Balochistan PA Leaves Legislative Agenda Unaddressed

ISLAMABAD, January 26, 2021: The Balochistan Assembly could not take up its legislative agenda on Tuesday due to lack of quorum, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during the first sitting of 32^nd session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for two hours and 23 minutes; however, the proceedings remained suspended for 25 minutes due to prayer break.
• The sitting started at 1700 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
• The Deputy Speaker chaired the entire sitting in the absence of Speaker.
• The Leader of the House (Chief Minister) attended the sitting for an hour and 43 minutes.
• The Leader of the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as four MPAs (6%) were present at the outset and 15 (23%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• Only the parliamentary leader of ANP attended the proceedings.
• Two out of three minority lawmakers were present.

Output

• The House did not consider three bills and four Standing Committees’ reports appearing on agenda.

Representation and Responsiveness

•  The House did not take up any of the 12 questions during the question hour as three were deferred and nine disposed of due to absent of relevant movers.
• The House took up three Call Attention Notices (CANs) regarding illegal construction of a plaza at Sabzi Mandi in Quetta, termination of 361 employees from Communications and Works Department and no progress on Speaker’s ruling into abduction case of Provincial Press Secretary, ANP.

Order and Institutionalization

• Seven lawmakers spoke on points of order for an hour and ten minutes.
• A BAP lawmaker pointed out quorum at 1922 hours which was found incomplete upon counting. Subsequently, the Chair adjourned the House to meet again on January 29, 2021 (Friday) at 1500 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.

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

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