ISLAMABAD, May 3, 2021: The Provincial Assembly of Sindh continued pre-budget discussion amid opposition’s protest as well as walkout and nine lawmakers participated in debate on it, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Monday.

Following are some key observations of the House proceedings during the seventh sitting of the 20th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for an hour and 45 minutes.
• The sitting started at 03:15 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
• The speaker chaired the sitting for an hour and 15 minutes while a member of panel of chairperson presided over the rest of the proceedings.
• The deputy speaker was not present.
• The leader of the house (chief minister) did not attend the sitting.
• The opposition leader attended the proceedings for 48 minutes.
• Twenty-one legislators (13 percent) were present at the outset and 20 (12 percent) at the end of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PTI, PPPP, TLP, and MQMP attended the proceedings while the leaders of GDA and MMAP did not participate in the sitting.
• Five out of nine minority lawmakers were present.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Nine lawmakers – PPPP (4), PTI (3) and one each of MQMP and GDA – participated in pre-budget debate and also spoke on budget execution reports for last two quarters of the year 2020. They consumed an hour and 53 minutes of the proceedings.

Order and Institutionalization

• Two lawmakers spoke on points of order (POs) for ten minutes mainly related to allocation of Malir land to Bahria Town by the Sindh Government.
• MQMP lawmakers walked out from the House for five minutes after protest when the Chair disallowed one of their colleague to continue  pre-budget speech.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on Thursday, May 6, 2021 at 02:00 pm.

 Transparency

• ‘List of Business’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• The attendance of lawmakers was not available to the observers and media.

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