ISLAMABAD, April 18, 2014: The Sindh Assembly experienced one of its worst days on Friday when it met for just 10 minutes and had to be adjourned for lack of quorum, during 11^th sitting of 12^th session, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

The sitting started at 1010 hrs against the scheduled time of 1000 hrs and ended after remaining in session for just 10 minutes, as majority of the treasury and the opposition members were not present. Only 5 members were present at the start and 7 at the end of the sitting.

The Speaker first ordered for the bells to be rung on the request of Parliamentary Affairs Minister and did it again on the insistence of education minister but on both occasions the quorum was found incomplete.

Only the Parliamentary Leader of PPPP was present in the House while those of MQM, PML-F, PML-N and PTI were absent from the proceedings.

In his observation, the Speaker said that he is always blamed to start the proceedings of the House late but today he is present and the lawmakers of both the treasury and opposition are not present. Later, the Speaker adjourned the proceedings till Monday morning.

Following are some key observations of the House proceedings:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings:

• The Sindh Assembly met for 10 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1010 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours, witnessing a delay of 10 minutes.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was also present.
• The Chief Minister and the Leader of the Opposition were not present.
• The parliamentary leader of PPPP attended the sitting, while those of PML-N, PTI, MQM and PML-F were absent.
• Five members were present at the outset while 7 at the adjournment. A maximum of 7 members were observed to be present at one point during the sitting.
• No minority member attended the sitting.

Order and Institutionalization

• The sitting was adjourned due to lack of quorum.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• Information on members’ attendance was available to observers and the public.

The Daily Factsheet is based on direct observation of Sindh Assembly proceedings conducted by Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF), a member organization of FAFEN