ISLAMABAD, January 15, 2016: Starting 81 minutes behind the scheduled time, the Provincial Assembly of Sindh transacted most of its agenda on list of business during first sitting of its 23rd session on Friday, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Some key observations are as follows:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings

• The Sindh Assembly met for 2 hours and 51 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1121 hours against the scheduled time of 1000 hours.
• Sixty-one (36%) lawmakers were present at the start and 70 (42%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• A maximum of 80 (48%) members attended the sitting.
• The Speaker was not present.
• The Deputy Speaker chaired the entire sitting.
• The Chief Minister did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of Opposition attended the sitting for 2 hours and 11 minutes.
• Parliamentary leaders of PPPP, MQM, PML-N and PTI attended the sitting.
• Three minority members attended the sitting.
• Four members applied for leave.

Output

• Introduced by Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, the House passed the Sindh Criminal Prosecution Service (Constitution, Functions and Powers) (Amendment) Bill, 2015.
• Two government bills appearing on the agenda – the Karachi Institute of Technology and Entrepreneurship Bill, 2015, the Sindh Shops and Commercial Establishment Bill, 2015 –were not taken up by the House.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up four out of five starred questions appearing on the agenda. The members also asked 16 supplementary questions.
• Four out of five Calling Attention Notices (CANs) were taken up and were responded to by the relevant Ministers. These CANs were about excessive tuition fee being charged by private schools, lack of clean drinking water for people of Karachi, non-fixation of price of sugarcane and vacant posts for Doctors in Civil Hospital Karachi.
• Moved by MQM lawmaker, the House debate on an Adjournment Motion (AM) for six minutes which was about delay in issuance of joining letters to Assistant Sub Inspectors of Sindh Police.

Order and Institutionalization

• Lawmakers spoke on 13 Points of Order consuming 15 minutes of the proceeding time.
• Opposition Parties protested against the attitude of the Chair for disallowing the Leader of Opposition to raise a point of order. This protest consumed eight minutes of the sitting time.
• Lawmakers belonging to MQM staged a protest within the House against a motion moved by Senior Minister to relax the rule for consideration of the Sindh Criminal Prosecution Service (Constitution, Functions and Powers) (Amendment) Bill, 2015. It consumed three minutes of the siting time.

Transparency

• Orders of the Day was available to the legislators, observers and others
• Information on legislators’ attendance was available to the observers and the public

To download the factsheet, Click here for English version and here for Urdu version

---

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.