Sindh Assembly Observes Question Hour, Leaves Rest of Agenda

ISLAMABAD, March 26, 2021: The Provincial Assembly of Sindh left its regular agenda unaddressed except question hour on Friday, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are some key observations of the House proceedings during third sitting of 19th session:

Members’ Participation

  • The Assembly met for an hour and 21 minutes.
  • The sitting started at 1135 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
  • The Speaker presided over the entire sitting.
  • The Deputy Speaker was also present.
  • The Leaders of the House (Chief Minister) and the Leader of the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
  • Twenty-nine legislators (17%) were present at the outset and 41 (24%) at the end of the sitting.
  • The Parliamentary Leaders of TLP, MQMP, PTI and PPPP attended the proceedings while the Parliamentary Leaders of GDA and MMAP were absent.
  • Six out of nine minority lawmakers were present.

Output                                             

  • The House did not consider a government bill, a report on 1st Biannual Monitoring on the implementation of National Finance Commission (NFC) Award for the period July-December, 2018 and message of Sindh Governor on consideration of the Sindh Letters of Administration and Succession Certificates Bill, 2021.

Representation and Responsiveness

  • The House took up seven out of 24 starred questions related to Irrigation Department. In addition, the lawmakers asked 47 supplementary questions.
  • An adjournment motion and four Calling Attention Notices (CANs) were not taken up by the House.

Order and Institutionalization

  • The House was adjourned to meet again on Monday, March 29, 2021 at 1200 hours.

 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.