ISLAMABAD, January 14, 2015: The Senate transacted its entire business amid low attendance during fourth sitting of 123rd session on Thursday, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

Some key observations are as follows:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings      

• The Senate met for three hours and 53 minutes.
• The sitting started at its scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• The House had a prayer break for 13 minutes.
• The Chairman presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Chairman was not present.
• Prime Minister did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the House attended the entire sitting.
• The Opposition Leader was present for three hours and 23 minutes.
• Federal Ministers for Religious Affairs; Housing; Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage; Climate Change; Petroleum and Natural Resources and State Ministers for Petroleum, Parliamentary Affairs and Information Technology were present.
• 18 (17%) Senators were present at the start and 28 (27%) at the time of adjournment.
• Parliamentary leaders of JUI-F, MQM, PML-N, PTI, PML, BNP-M, PkMAP and NP were present.
• One minority member was present.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The Chair admitted an adjournment motion for discussion regarding speech delivered by US President to the State of the Union wherein he mentioned the name of Pakistan in the context of terrorism / extremism.
• The House took up two Calling Attention Notices (CANs) regarding low pressure / shortage of gas and non-increase in pension of employees of PIA.
• The House passed a motion to present the draft Rules of the Senate Committee on Ethics and draft Code of Conduct for Members of the Senate as prepared by the Special Committee on Ethics. Twenty-two lawmakers and Chairman Senate spoke on it for 121 minutes.
• All 20 starred questions appearing on the agenda were taken up. In addition, the lawmakers raised 29 supplementary questions.
• A motion to condone delay in presentation of report on Starred Question No. 156, regarding the release of Zakat funds to the provinces during the financial years 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 was also passed.
• The House witnessed presentation of four Standing Committees reports.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.

To download the factsheet, click here for English Version, click here for Urdu Version

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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.