ISLAMABAD, January 9, 2020: The National Assembly deferred legislative agenda on ministerial request and consumed one third of the proceedings’ time on points of order, observes Free and Fair Election Network in its Daily Factsheet on Thursday.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during seventh sitting of the 18^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The National Assembly met for two hours and 55 minutes; however, the proceedings remained suspended for seven minutes due to lack of quorum.
• The sitting started at 1133 hours against the scheduled time of 1100 hours.
• A member of Panel of Chairpersons presided over the entire sitting in the absence of Speaker and Deputy Speaker.
• The Leaders of the House (Prime Minister) and the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 32 (9%) members were present at the outset and 43 (13%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of BAP, JWP and PPPP attended the sitting.
• Five out of 10 minority lawmakers were present.

Output

• The Chair deferred three government bills following the request from the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs. These bills were the Federal Public Service Commission (Validation of Rules) Bill, 2019, the Banks (Nationalization) (Amendment) Bill, 2019 and the University of Islamabad Bill, 2019.
• Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs introduced the SBP Banking Services Corporation (SBP BSC) (Amendment) Bill, 2020 which was referred to the relevant committee for consideration.
• On behalf of Chairman Standing Committee on Human Rights, a member of the Committee presented reports on the ICT Rights of Persons with Disability Bill, 2018 and the Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Bill, 2019. These bills were referred to the Committee on December 21, 2018 and April 24, 2019 respectively.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Minister for Energy responded to two Calling Attention Notices regarding electricity connections for tube wells in Islamabad and delay in laying of electricity transmission lines in various areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa despite release of funds.
• The House took up 11 out of 32 starred questions while lawmakers asked 16 supplementary questions as well.
• A motion of thanks expressing gratitude to the President for his address to Parliament was not taken up.
• Minister for Communications gave a policy statement for ten minutes about performance of government in various sectors.

   Order and Institutionalization

• As many as twenty lawmakers spoke on points of order for 58 minutes.
• A PML-N lawmaker pointed out the quorum at 1142 hours which led to the suspension of the proceedings for seven minutes.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on January 10, 2020 (Friday) at 1100 hours.

Transparency

• Orders of the Day was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• Attendance of the lawmakers is available on the National Assembly’s website.

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