ISLAMABAD, June 28, 2021: The Provincial Assembly of Sindh transacted 40 percent of its agenda and passed the Sindh Protection of Journalists and other Media Practitioners Bill, 2021 returned by the Governor for reconsideration, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Monday.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during 18th sitting of the 21st session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for 40 minutes.
• The sitting started at 03:00 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
• The speaker chaired the entire proceedings.
• The deputy speaker was also present.
• The leader of the House (Chief Minister) did not attend the sitting.
• The leader of the opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as 56 MPAs (33 percent) were present at the outset and 78 (46 percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, PTI, GDA and MMAP were present, while MQM and TLP leaders did not attend the sitting.
• Seven out of nine minority lawmakers attended the proceedings.

Output  

• The Chair announced assent of Governor to four bills which were the Sindh Motor Vehicles Taxation (Amendment) Bill, 2021; the Provincial Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill 2021; the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2021 and the Abdul Majid Bhurgri Institute of Language Engineering Bill, 2019.
• Returned by the Governor, the House reconsidered the Sindh Protection of Journalists and other Media Practitioners Bill, 2021 under Rule 117 of the Rules of Procedure of the Provincial Assembly of Sindh, 2013 and passed it.

Representation and Responsiveness  

• None out of eight starred questions was taken up during the question hour. The movers of five questions were absent.
• Three other questions, an adjournment motion and a privilege motion remained unaddressed because their sponsors did not move them due to protest in the House.

Order and Institutionalization

• Lawmakers belonging to PTI protested for 25 minutes when the Chair refused to give floor to the leader of the opposition.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on Tuesday, June 29, 2021 at 02:00 pm.

 Transparency                                                              

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• The attendance of lawmakers was not available to the media and observers.

This Daily Factsheet is based on direct observation of the Assembly proceedings conducted by Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF), a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions excepted