Senate Continues Debate on Finance Bill

ISLAMABAD, June 8, 2016: The Senate continued debate on a motion to make recommendations to the National Assembly on Finance Bill, 2016 during 5^th sitting of 249^th session on Wednesday, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are some key observations of the parliamentary business:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings

• The Senate met for three hours and 25 minutes.
• The sitting started three minutes late against the scheduled time of 1100 hours.
• The House had a prayer break for 27 minutes.
• The Chairman chaired the sitting for 46 minutes while rest of the proceeding was presided over by the Deputy Chairman.
• The Leader of the House attended the entire sitting while the Leader of the Opposition was present for 75 minutes.
• Finance Minister did not attend the sitting.
• Parliamentary leaders of PML-F, BNP-M, PPPP, NP, PML-N, JI,PkMAP, ANP and PML attended the sitting.
• 15 members (14% of the total membership – 104) were present at the outset and 14 members (13%) at the end of the sitting.
• Three minority Senators attended the sitting.

Output

• The House adopted a special report of the Senate body regarding the problems being faced by Overseas Pakistanis.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Ten Senators expressed their views on a commenced motion to make recommendations to National Assembly on the Finance Bill, 2016. They spoke on it for 131 minutes.
• The House took up two Calling Attention Notices (CANs). The first CAN was regarding the unscheduled load-shedding of electricity while other notice was about delay in finalisation and implementation of FATA reforms.
• An adjournment motion about collection of money by the government from the electricity consumers on account of various surcharges was withdrawn by the mover.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
•  The attendance of lawmakers is available on the website.

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

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