ISLAMABAD, February 11, 2022: The Senate referred four government bills to the relevant committees on Friday after their introduction in the House, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the proceedings during the 17th sitting of 317th session:

Members’ Participation

• The Senate met for two hours and 24 minutes.
• The sitting started at the scheduled time of 10:30 am.
• The chairman presided over the entire proceedings.
• The deputy chairman was also present.
• The leader of the house attended the entire sitting.
• The opposition leader was not present.
• As many as 29 lawmakers (29%) were present at the outset and 17 (17%) at the adjournment of sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, PTI, JI, PkMAP, BNP, NP and BAP attended the sitting.
• Three out of four minority lawmakers were present.

  Output

• The House witnessed introduction of four government bills which were the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2022; the Government Savings Bank (Amendment) Bill, 2022; the Post Office National Savings Certificates (Amendment) Bill, 2022 and the National Information Technology Board Bill, 2022.
• Chairman standing committee on interior presented reports on three bills including the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021] (Omission of section 325 of PPC and amendment in Schedule II of Cr.P.C); the Registration (Amendment) Bill, 2021 (Amendment of section 17) and the Children (Pledging of Labour) (Amendment) Bill, 2022 (Substitution of sections 4, 5 and 6).

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up all 12 starred questions while lawmakers asked 29 supplementary questions as well.
• Twelve lawmakers spoke on points of public importance for 59 minutes.

Order and Institutionalization

• Lawmakers belonging to BAP walked out from the House for 19 minutes against neglecting the issues of Balochistan by the federal government.
• The Chair deferred two calling attention notices and a motion of thanks to the President for his address to Parliament.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on Monday, February 14, 2022 at 03:00 pm.

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 proceedings conducted by Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN). Errors and omissions are excepted