ISLAMABAD, January 26, 2012: The Sindh Assembly met for three hours and 25 minutes during the last sitting of the ongoing session on Thursday.

Fifty-three MPAs (32% of total Membership) were present at the start and 48 (29%) when the session was prorogued.

The House adopted five Resolutions as two Bills were introduced during the sitting.

Out of the 22 questions listed for the Question Hour, only 17 were put up and responded by relevant ministries.

The Parliamentary Leaders of PML, MQM, PMLF, NPP, ANP and PML (forward block) attended the sitting.

Following are some key observations of the parliamentary business:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings

• The Sindh Assembly met for three hours and 25 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1120 hours against the scheduled starting time of 1000 hours. The proceedings started late by an hour and 20 minutes.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting.
• The Chief Minister attended the proceedings for an hour and 35 minutes.
• The Parliamentary Leaders of PML, MQM, PMLF, NPP, ANP and PML (forward block) attended the sitting, while the leader of the PPPP was absent.
• Fifty-three MPAs (32% of total Membership) were present at the start and 48 (29%) when the sitting was adjourned. A maximum of 104 Members (62%) were present at one point of the sitting.
• Six minority Members were present during the sitting.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Out of the 22 questions listed for the Question Hour, only 17 were put up and responded by relevant ministries.
• Thirty-three supplementary questions were raised during the sitting.
• An Adjournment Motion about violation of article 25 of the Constitution was debated for 22 minutes.

Output

• The Protection of Religious Minorities Properties Bill, 2012 and the Registration (Sindh Amendment) Bill 2012 were introduced.
• Three Resolutions – “renaming of Sukkar airport to Begum Nusrat Bhutto”, directing multinational coal exploration companies to comply the agreements regarding employment of local people in Sindh province”, and “drinking water” – were adopted by the House.

Order and Institutionalization

• Nine Points of Order consumed 13 minutes of sitting time. However, none of them attracted formal ruling of the Chair.

• There were no instances of protests, boycotts or walkouts during the sitting.

Transparency

• Orders of the Day were available to Legislators, observers and others.
• Information on Members’ attendance was unavailable to observers and the public.
• The Quorum, visibly lacking at various stages during the sitting, was not pointed out by any of the Members.

After successfully observing proceedings of the National Assembly, the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) has started the observation of the provincial assemblies – Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan – and the Senate.This daily factsheet is based on FAFEN’s direct observation of the 18th sitting of 32nd session of the Sindh Assembly. These reports are released on the day the sittings are held to provide media and other interested stakeholders vital statistics about the Assembly proceedings to encourage informed public discourse on its performance.

The Daily Factsheet is based on direct observation of Sindh Assembly proceedings conducted by Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF), a member organization of FAFEN