ISLAMABAD, April 30, 2019: The Senate took up its entire agenda on Tuesday including debate on an adjournment motion regarding increase in current account deficit of the country, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during fourth sitting of 288^th session:

 Members’ Participation

• The House met for five hours and one minute; however, the proceedings remained suspended for 15 minutes due to prayer break.
• The sitting started at the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• The Deputy Chairman presided over the entire sitting in the absence of Chairman.
• The Leader of the House was present for four hours and nine minutes.
• The Leader of the Opposition was present for two hours and 23 minutes.
• The Prime Minister did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 13 lawmakers (12%) were present at the outset and14 (13%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, PML-N, PTI, BNP, MQM, JI and PkMAP attended the sitting.
• Three out of four minority lawmakers were present.

Output

• The House adopted a report of Functional Committee on Problems of Less Developed Areas presented after visit of the committee members to Chitral, Kalash and Peshawar from October 19 to October 22, 2018. Ten lawmakers including the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs spoke on it for 50 minutes.

  Representation and Responsiveness 

• The Minister of State for Revenue responded to a Calling Attention Notice (CAN) regarding report of State Bank about possible increase in the prices of necessary items before Ramazan.
• The Minister for Parliamentary Affairs responded to another CAN about rising number of polio cases and frequent detection of polio virus from the sewage samples across Pakistan.
• Moved by a PPPP lawmaker, the House debated an adjournment motion regarding increase of 44.7 % in current account deficit of Pakistan as compared to year 2017 which has soared upto 17.994 billion dollars. Four lawmakers spoke on this motion for 59 minutes while the Minister of State for Revenue concluded debate on it during his nine minutes speech.
• The House passed a motion under Rule 194 (1) granting extension of 60 days to present report of Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs about arrest of a Pakistani citizen in Saudi Arabia due to expiry of his visa.
• The House took up eight out of 29 Starred Questions while three questions were deferred and remaining 18 questions were not taken. The lawmakers also asked 23 supplementary questions.
• Seven lawmakers spoke on matters of public importance for 18 minutes.

 Order and Institutionalization 

• The Chair suspended the proceedings for 23 minutes due to the absence of ministers during the question hour.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on May 2, 2019 (Thursday) at 1500 hours.

Transparency

• The Chair suspended the proceedings for 23 minutes due to absence of ministers during question hour.
• ‘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 proceedings conducted by Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN). Errors and omissions are excepted