ISLAMABAD, January 1, 2016: The Senate considered its entire agenda appearing on Orders of the Day on Friday amid low attendance of lawmakers during last sitting of its ongoing 122^nd session, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

The House witnessed low attendance as only 10 (9%) legislators were present at the start and 28 (27%) at the time of adjournment.

Some key observations are as follows:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings

• The Senate met for two hours and seven minutes.
• The sitting started at the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• The Chairman presided over the entire sitting.
• Deputy Chairman and Prime Minister did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the House attended the entire sitting.
• The Opposition Leader was not present.
• Federal Ministers for Climate Change, Commerce, National Health Services and Regulations, Religious Affairs, Information, Petroleum and Natural Resources, Finance and State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Interior were present.
• Ten (9%) Senators were present at the start and 28 (27%) at the time of adjournment.
• Parliamentary leaders of PkMAP, MQM, PML, PTI and PML-N were present.
• One minority member was present.

Output

• Introduced by Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources, the House passed the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2015.
• Leader of the House introduced the Electoral Rolls (Amendment) Bill, 2015, the Delimitation of Constituencies (Amendment) Bill, 2015 and the Patents (Amendment) Bill, 2015. All these bills were sent to the relevant committees for further deliberations.
• The Minister for Finance presented a copy of the Money Bill, the Income Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2016, before the House and sought recommendation of the Senate on it.
• The Minister for Finance presented the report on 2nd Biannual Monitoring on the Implementation of NFC Award (January – June, 2015).

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up two Calling Attention Notices (CANs) about accident of Shaheen Airline’s Aircraft at Lahore Airport and depriving common people from benefit of low fallen prices of petroleum products.
• The Chair did not admit two adjournment motions (AMs) due to absence of movers which were about non-implementation of sugarcane price as announced by Prime Minister and prevention steps against HIV/AIDS.
• Another AM about circular debt payment to Independent Power Producers was also not admitted by the Chair. The Chair said that a report has been submitted with the House on the issue and debate might be conducted later on it.
• The House discussed an AM about attack on Army Public School, Peshawar on December 16, 2014. Chairman Senate and eight other lawmakers – MQM (3), PPPP and PML-N (2 each) and PML (one) spoke on it for 45 minutes.
• All 12 starred questions appearing on the agenda were taken up. In addition, the lawmakers raised 20 supplementary questions.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.

To download the 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.