House fails to take up any agenda item due to low attendance of lawmakers

ISLAMABAD, November 29, 2016: The Punjab Assembly did not take up Private Member’s agenda due to lack of quorum on Tuesday. It is consecutively the fourth sitting adjourned due to missing quorum, observes Free and Fair Election Network in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are some key observations of the House proceedings during fourth sitting of 25^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The Punjab Assembly met for 43 minutes.
• The proceedings remained postponed for 23 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1122 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was absent.
• The Chief Minister did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for 12 minutes.
• Nine lawmakers (2%) were present at outset and 52 (14%) at adjournment of the sitting.
• None of the parliamentary leaders attended the sitting.
• No minority members attended the proceedings.

Output

• The House did not take up any agenda appearing on Orders of the Day.

Representation and Responsiveness

• One out of seven Starred Questions were responded to by the government while the lawmakers also asked two Supplementary Questions.

Order and Institutionalization

• The legislators spoke on two Points of Order consuming as many minutes of the proceedings.
• An Independent lawmaker pointed out quorum at 1134 hours that led to suspension of the proceedings for 23 minutes. However, the quorum was not found complete upon counting and the sitting was adjourned.

Transparency

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