ISLAMABAD, November 10, 2015: The Chairman Senate suspended the House proceeding for 15 minutes on Tuesday due to absence of relevant ministers who had to present various agenda items appearing on Orders of the Day during seventh sitting of the Senate’s ongoing 121^st session, says Free and Fair Election Network in its daily factsheet.

The Minister In-Charge of the Climate Change was due to present report on the relief activities in the aftermath of recent earthquake but his absence forced the Chair to adjourn the sitting who directed to ensure presence of any minister to table this report.

The sitting resumed after 15 minutes and State Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources presented the report before the House and spoke on it for nine minutes.

Twenty lawmakers – PPPP (5), PML-N, MQM & PML (3 each), ANP & PTI (2 each) and one each of NP and JI – participated in the debate on the report for 71 minutes. Chairman Senate also spoke about the same for six minutes and directed to submit another report during the next session about future planning and performance of National Disaster Management Authority and Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority.

Some key observations are as follows:

Members’ Participation in House Proceeding

• The Senate met for three hours and 34 minutes
• The sitting started at the scheduled time of 1000 hours
• Chairman presided over the entire sitting
• The Deputy Chairman was also present.
• Prime Minister did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the House attended the sitting for two hours and 59 minutes while the Opposition Leader was present for two hours and 54 minutes.
• Six (5%) senators were present at the start and 35 (34%) at the time of adjournment
• Parliamentary leaders of PkMAP, BNP-M, JUI-F, MQM, PPPP, PTI, ANP, PML-N, NP, PML, JI, BNP-A and PML-F were present
• Two minority members were present

Output

• State Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources presented report on the relief activities in the aftermath of recent earthquake.
• Two bills on the agenda including the Islamabad Subordinate Judiciary Service Tribunal Bill 2015 and the Federal Judicial Academy (Amendment) Bill, 2015 were not taken up by the House due to absence of Minister for Law, Justice and Human Rights.
• Annual Reports of the Council of Islamic Ideology for the years 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12 were not presented in the House due to absence of Minister for Law, Justice and Human Rights.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Fifteen out of the 32 starred questions appearing on the agenda were taken up. Eleven questions related to Ministry of Water and Power were not taken up due to absence of relevant minister while remaining four were also left unaddressed due to movers’ absence. In addition, the lawmakers raised 34 supplementary questions
• The Chair admitted an adjournment motion sponsored by PPPP female lawmaker from Sindh. It was regarding discussion on the Climate Change Ministry’s draft of the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) and negotiation plan for the Paris summit on Climate Change.
• The House took up a Calling Attention Notice regarding non-payment of salaries to the daily-wager employees of Model Colleges of Islamabad.
• Out of ten privilege motions on the agenda, five were withdrawn and the remaining five were disposed of.
  Two AMs regarding wave of intolerance in India and implementation on Pakistan Engineering Building Code 2007 were not admitted as the House had already discussed both aforementioned issues.
• The House witnessed presentation of three reports about anti-money laundering (Amendment ) Bill 2014, relief work in earthquake hit areas and non-provision of brief by Secretary Cabinet over an adjournment motion.

Order and Institutionalization

• Four points of public importance consumed six minutes of the proceeding’s time.
• The entire Opposition walked out of the sitting for one minute against not taking the House into confidence over LNG price agreement and torture on a female Christian student in Faisalabad.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public
• The attendance of the members was available to observers and media

To download factsheet, click here

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This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Senate proceeding conducted by Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN). Errors and omissions are excepted