ISLAMABAD, June 22, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan started general discussion on annual budget for the financial year 2019-20 which continued for an hour and five minutes on Saturday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during second sitting of the budget (14^th) session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for three hours and 14 minutes. However, it took a prayer break for 38 minutes and another break for 33 minutes to discuss opposition’s grievances on budget in the Speaker’s Chamber.
• The sitting started at 1714 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
• The Deputy Speaker presided over the entire sitting in the absence of the Speaker.
• The Leader of the House attended the proceedings for three hours and four minutes.
• The Leader of Opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as 27 MPAs (40%) were present at the outset and 14 (21%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of BAP, BNP, PkMAP, BNP-M, MMAP, ANP and JWP attended the proceedings.
• All three minority lawmakers were present.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Four lawmakers – MMAP and BNP-M (two each) – participated in general discussion on annual budget for an hour and five minutes.
• The Minister for Finance presented 23 Demands for Grants and Appropriations for Current Expenditure which were approved by the House.

Order and Institutionalization

• Seven lawmakers raised Points of Order consuming 23 minutes of the proceedings.
• The entire opposition walked out of the proceedings for 21 minutes against the approval of 23 Demands for Grants and Appropriations for Current Expenditure.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on June 24 (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.

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