ISLAMABAD, December 30, 2011: The National Assembly met for an hour and 52 minutes during the eight sitting of the ongoing session. Low Attendance of Members was observed as only 32 Legislators were present at the start and 74 when the sitting was adjourned.

Sixteen Points of Order consumed 60% of the total time. However, none of the Points of Order attracted the Chair’s formal ruling.

The Carriage by Air Bill, 2011 was unanimously passed by the House.

The Prime Minister did not attend the proceedings, while the Leader of the Opposition was present for 45 minutes. Only the parliamentary leader of MMAP was present.

Members’ participation in House proceedings

• The National Assembly met for an hour and 52 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1045 Hours against the scheduled starting time of 1000 hours. The proceedings started late by 45 minutes.
• The sitting was presided over by the Deputy Speaker.
• The Prime Minister did not attend the proceedings, while the Leader of the Opposition was present for 45 minutes.
• Only the Parliamentary Leader of MMAP was present, while the leaders of MQM, BNPA, ANP, NNP, PPPS, PML and PMLF were absent.
• The Chief Whips of MMAP, PPPP, and MQM were present, while those of the PMLN, ANP, PML and PMLF were absent.
• A total of 32 (9%) Members were present at the outset and 74 (22%) at the end of the sitting.
• Twelve Members applied for leave to be absent from the sitting.
• Six out of 10 minority Members were present during the sitting.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up one out of two Calling Attention Notices (CANs) which appeared on the Orders of the Day
• Moved by five PMLN Members – all male Members – the CAN was about “leasing out the land of the Pakistan Post worth billion of rupees”, which was directed to the Ministry of Postal Services.
• Out of the 17 questions to be taken up during the Question Hour, only four were put up and responded by the relevant ministries.
• Six supplementary questions were raised during the sitting.

Output

• The Carriage by Air Bill, 2011 was unanimously passed by the House. The Provincial Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2011 was not taken up.

Order and institutionalization

• Sixteen Points of Order consumed 67 minutes (60% of total sitting time). However, none of the Points of Order attracted the Chair’s formal ruling.
• There were no instances of protests, boycotts or walkouts.

Transparency

• Orders of the Day were available to Legislators, observers and others.
• Information on Members’ attendance was unavailable to observers and the public.
• The Quorum was visibly lacking at various stages during the sitting. However, lack of Quorum was not pointed out by any of the Members.

The Daily Factsheet is based on direct observation of the Senate proceedings conducted by Center for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI), a member organization of FAFEN.