ISLAMABAD, January 7, 2021: The Sindh Assembly on Thursday passed a bill to revise the existing allowances and privileges of the Parliamentary Secretaries with effect from August 13, 2018 and referred three other legislative proposals to the relevant committees, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the proceedings during second sitting of the 17^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for two hours and eight minutes.
• The sitting started at 1520 hours against the scheduled time of 1400 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire proceedings.
• The Deputy Speaker was not present.
• The Leader of the House (Chief Minister) did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition was present for 55 minutes.
• As many as 26 MPAs (16%) were present at the outset and 36 (22%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The Parliamentary leaders of PPPP, MMAP, TLP, PTI and GDA attended the sitting.
• As many as seven out of nine minority lawmakers were also present.

 Output

• Introduced by the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, the House passed the Sindh Parliamentary Secretaries (Salaries, Allowances and Privileges) (Amendment) Bill, 2021.The bill proposes to enhance allowances and privileges of the Parliamentary Secretaries with effect from August 13, 2018.
• The House witnessed introduction of three government bills which were referred to the relevant committees for further consideration. These bills were the Control of Narcotics Substance (Sindh Amendment) Bill, 2021; the Sindh Child Protection Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2021 and the Letters of Administration and Succession Certificates Bill, 2021.

Representation and Responsiveness

• MQM lawmaker withdrew his privilege motion on the assurance of relevant minister to address the matter. The motion was against the Sindh Assembly Secretariat for not including his seven bills on `Orders of the Day’.
• An adjournment motion of MMAP lawmaker was termed `out of order’ and rejected by the Chair. It was regarding lack of basic facilities in Karachi.
• The House took up four out of five starred questions while lawmakers also asked 17 supplementary questions.

Order and Institutionalization

• The House was adjourned to meet again on January 8, 2021 (Friday) at 1430 hours.

Transparency                                                              

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• The attendance of lawmakers was 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 are excepted