ISLAMABAD, March 15, 2017: The Provincial Assembly (PA) of the Punjab continued pre-budget discussion amidst absence of the Speaker and the Leader of the House, and deferred four Adjournment Motions on Wednesday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

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

Members’ Participation

• The Punjab Assembly met for four hours and 38 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1117 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
• The Deputy Speaker chaired the entire sitting in the absence of the Speaker, while a member of the Panel of Chairpersons presided over the proceedings for 55 minutes.
• The Chief Minister did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the sitting for two hours and 54 minutes.
• Six MPAs (1%) were present at the outset and four (1%) at the adjournment of sitting.
• The parliamentary leader of JI attended the sitting.
• Three minority members were present.

Output

• The House granted two-month extension to the Standing Committees on Privileges, Agriculture, Live Stock, Services and General Administration, Housing, Urban Development and Public Health Engineering for presentation of their reports.

Representation and Responsiveness

• As many as five out of seven Starred Questions were responded to by the government during Question Hour while remaining two questions were disposed of due to the absence of movers. The lawmakers asked 17 Supplementary Questions, as well.
• The House deferred four Adjournment Motions of PTI and PML lawmakers.
• Twenty lawmakers participated in the pre-budget discussion that consumed two hours and 48 minutes.

Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers spoke on nine Points of Order consuming 10 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.