ISLAMABAD, March 8, 2017: The Punjab Assembly began Pre-Budget discussion amid lack of quorum pointed out four times by the lawmakers during the sitting on Wednesday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during third sitting of 27^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The Punjab Assembly met for three hours and four minutes.
• The proceedings remained suspended for an hour and three minutes due to lack of quorum.
• The sitting started at 1112 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was not present.
• The Chief Minister and the Leader of the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• Eleven lawmakers (3%) were present at the outset and 23 (6%) at the adjournment of sitting.
• The Parliamentary leader of JI attended the proceedings.
• Five minority members were also present.

Output

• Provincial Minister for Law presented the Annual Activity Reports of the Lahore Ring Road Authority for the Years 2011-12 & 2012-13 as well as the Audit Report of Appropriation Accounts for the Year 2014-15.

Representation and Responsiveness

• As many as five out of 18 Starred Questions were responded to by the government during the Question Hour while 10 questions were disposed of due to the absence of movers. The lawmakers also asked 15 Supplementary Questions.
• The House deferred an Adjournment Motion of a PML-N lawmaker.
• Provincial Minister for Finance inaugurated the Pre-Budget discussion, while two more lawmakers also shared their thoughts on the subject for 23 minutes.

Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers spoke on six Points of Order consuming eight minutes of the proceedings.
• Three lawmakers – two of PTI and an independent – pointed out quorum four times during the sitting. The proceedings were once suspended for an hour and three minutes while on two occasions the bells were rung for five minutes and the quorum was found complete on one occasion.
• Opposition lawmakers staged a protest for seven minutes over lack of quorum and walked out of the House and didn’t return till the adjournment of the proceedings.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• Information on Members’ attendance is available on Punjab Assembly’s website.

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The daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Punjab Assembly proceedings conducted by PATTAN Development Organization – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are regretted.