Sindh Assembly passes two bills, concludes pre-budget debate

  • Session Prorogued

ISLAMABAD, May 7, 2021: The Provincial Assembly of Sindh passed two government bills and concluded pre-budget discussion, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Friday.

Following are some key observations of the House proceedings during the ninth sitting of the 20th session:

Members’ Participation

  • The House met for four hours and ten minutes.
  • The sitting started at 02:45 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
  • The speaker chaired the entire sitting.
  • The deputy speaker was not present.
  • The leader of the house (chief minister) attended the sitting for two hours and 17 minutes.
  • The opposition leader attended the proceedings for two hours and 42 minutes.
  • Thirty-one (18 percent) were present at the outset and 16 (10 percent) at the end of the sitting.
  • The parliamentary leaders of PTI, PPPP and MQMP attended the proceedings while the leaders of GDA, MMAP and TLP did not participate in the sitting.
  • Five out of nine minority lawmakers were present.

 Output

  • Introduced by the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, the House passed two bills including the Provincial Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2021 and the Provincial Motor Vehicle Taxation (Amendment) Bill, 2021. These bills were considered in the House as supplementary agenda.

Representation and Responsiveness

  • Six lawmakers – three each from PPPP and PTI – participated in pre-budget debate for two hours and 36 minutes. The chief minister concluded debated on it and spoke for an hour and one minute.

Order and Institutionalization

  • The Session was prorogued sine die.

 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