ISLAMABAD, July 2, 2021: The Provincial Assembly of Sindh passed four government bills on Friday and admitted an adjournment motion for debate, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

 Following are key observations of the House proceedings during 20th sitting of the 21st session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for an hour and 50 minutes.
• The sitting started at 03:15 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
• The speaker chaired the entire proceedings.
• The deputy speaker was not present.
• The leaders of the House (Chief Minister) and the opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 38 MPAs (23 percent) were present at the outset and 23 (14 percent) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PPPP, MQM and TLP were present, while GDA, MMAP and PTI leaders did not attend the sitting.
• Six out of nine minority lawmakers attended the proceedings.

 Output 

• Moved by Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, the House passed four government bills including the Sindh Terms of Employment (Standing Orders) (Amendment) Bill, 2021; the Sindh Employees Social Security (Amendment) Bill, 2021; the Ziauddin University Examination Board (Amendment) Bill, 2021 and the Ziauddin University (Amendment) Bill, 2021. Earlier, the House passed a motion to suspend rules for immediate consideration of these bills.

Representation and Responsiveness 

• Five out of seven starred questions were taken up during the question hour. In addition, the lawmakers asked 27 supplementary questions.
• Minister for Energy responded to two calling attention notices (CANs) regarding unscheduled load shedding of gas and electricity in Sindh.
• A CAN related to Ministry of Local Government was deferred due to absence of Minister while another notice regarding encroachment in SITE Area, Karachi was lapsed due to mover’s absence.
• The House did not consider a privilege motion due to absence of relevant mover, while the Chair admitted an adjournment motion for discussion in next sitting related to prolonged gas load shedding for domestic consumers.

 Order and Institutionalization

• Lawmakers belonging to PTI did not attend the sitting,
• The House was adjourned to meet again on Monday, July 5, 2021 at 02:00 pm.

 Transparency                                                             

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and public.
• The attendance of lawmakers was not 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 excepted