Sindh Assembly leaves most of its agenda unaddressed

ISLAMABAD, May 25, 2021: The Sindh Assembly on Tuesday did not consider two private bills, four resolutions, five motions and an adjournment motion, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are some key observations of the House proceedings during the third sitting of the 21st session:

Members’ Participation

  • The House met for an hour and 30 minutes.
  • The sitting started at 03:30 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
  • The speaker chaired the entire sitting.
  • The deputy speaker was also present.
  • The leader of the house (chief minister) and the opposition leader did not attend the sitting.
  • Twenty-six legislators (15 percent) were present at the outset and 49 (29 percent) at the end of the sitting.
  • The parliamentary leaders of, PTI, PPPP, and MMAP attended the proceedings while the leaders of GDA, MQMP, and TLP were absent.
  • Five out of nine minority lawmakers were present.

Output

  • The House did not consider two private members’ bills, four private resolutions, five private motions and 22 motions appearing on agenda for amendments to rules of procedure of the Provincial Assembly of Sindh.

Representation and Responsiveness

  • Out of 14 starred questions, the House took up six related to the Department of Law and Parliamentary Affairs. Besides, the lawmakers also asked 32 supplementary questions.
  • Ministers for irrigation and parliamentary affairs spoke on inappropriate behaviour of Indus River System Authority’s (IRSA) chairman with Sindh’s representative for seven minutes.
  • The House did not take up an adjournment motion regarding adoption of 2017 census results by the Council of Common Interests.

Order and Institutionalization

  • Six lawmakers spoke on points of order (POs) for 13 minutes mainly related to the inappropriate behaviour of IRSA chairman and House Business.
  • The PPPP lawmakers protested for two minutes when the PTI lawmakers criticized the PPPP’s senior leadership.
  • The House was adjourned to meet again on Friday, May 28, 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