ISLAMABAD, January 25, 2017: The Punjab Assembly held general discussion on the issue of health while seven Adjournment Motions remained pended on the request of treasury, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) on Wednesday.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during third sitting of 26^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The Punjab Assembly met for three hours and 44 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1117 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the sitting for two hours and four minutes while a Member of the Panel of Chairpersons presided over the rest of proceedings. The Deputy Speaker was not present.
• The Chief Minister did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for an hour and 58 minutes.
• Twenty-two MPAs (6%) were present at outset and 10 (3%) at adjournment of the sitting.
• Only JI’s parliamentary leader attended the sitting.
• Four minority members were present.

Output

Minister for Law laid the Punjab Private Educational Institutions (Promotion and Regulation) (Amendment) Ordinance 2017 before the House.

Representation and Responsiveness

• As many as five out of 10 Starred Questions were responded to by the government during Question Hour while remaining five questions were disposed of due to the absence of movers. The lawmakers also asked 15 supplementary questions.
• The House deferred seven Adjournment Motions of PTI, PML-N and PML lawmakers on the request of treasury.
• Minister for Health initiated the general discussion on health and spoke for 13 minutes. Fifteen lawmakers took part in discussion consuming two hours and 12 minutes.

Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers spoke on four Points of Order consuming as many minutes 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.