ISLAMABAD, April 26, 2021: The Provincial Assembly of Sindh started pre-budget discussion and four lawmakers participated in debate on it, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Monday.

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

Members’ Participation

• The House met for an hour and 12 minutes.
• The sitting started at 03:22 pm against the scheduled time of 02:00 pm.
• The speaker presided over the entire sitting.
• The deputy speaker was also present.
• The leader of the house (chief minister) and the opposition leader did not attend the proceedings.
• Twenty-seven legislators (16 percent) were present at the outset and 38 (23 percent) at the end of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PTI, MQMP, MMAP, and PPPP, attended the proceedings while the leaders of GDA and TLP did not participate in the sitting.
• Five out of nine minority lawmakers were present.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Four lawmakers – two each of PTI and PPPP – participated in pre-budget debate and also spoke on budget execution reports for last two quarters of the year 2020. They consumed 52 minutes of the proceedings.

Order and Institutionalization

• Three lawmakers spoke on points of order (POs) for seven minutes related to convening virtual session of Assembly due to Covid-19 pandemic.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on Tuesday, April 27, 2021 at 02:00 pm.

 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