ISLAMABAD, October 7, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan witnessed introduction of two government bills and presentation of four reports of Standing Committees on as many legislative proposals, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet on Monday.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during first sitting of the 16^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for four hours and four minutes, however, the proceedings remained suspended for 40 minutes due to prayer break.
• The sitting started at 1726 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting.
• The Deputy Speaker was also present.
• The Leader of the House attended the proceedings for an hour and 56 minutes.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as 22 MPAs (34%) were present at the outset and 29 (45%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of BAP, PkMAP, ANP, BNP, BNP-M, PTI and MMA attended the proceedings.
• All three minority lawmakers were present.

Output

• Introduced by a BAP lawmaker, the House referred the Code of Civil Procedure (Balochistan Amendment) Bill, 2019 to the concerned Standing Committee.
• Minister for Social Welfare introduced the Balochistan Charity Institutions (Registration, Regulation and Facilitation) Bill, 2019. ‎
• Four reports of Standing Committees on as many legislative proposals including the Balochistan Education Foundation (Amendment) Bill, 2019; the Balochistan Private Educational Institutions (Registration, Regulation and Promotion) Bill, 2019; the Balochistan Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Bill, 2019 and the Balochistan Mental Health Bill, 2019 were presented in the House.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up two out of 12 starred questions while the remaining ten questions were not taken up. The lawmakers asked seven supplementary questions as well.
• The Minister for Education responded to a Call Attention Notice (CAN) of a PkMAP lawmaker regarding hiring of staff in Secondary Education Department. Another CAN about growing use of drugs among public remained unaddressed due to mover’s absence.
• The Chair deferred an Adjournment Motion of a BNP-M lawmaker regarding unemployment.

Order and Institutionalization

• Eleven lawmaker spoke on Points of Order consuming 53 minutes of the proceedings.
• The entire opposition staged a walk out for five minutes against irregularities in hiring of staff at Higher Education department.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on October 10, 2019 (Thursday) at 1500 hours.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• Attendance of the lawmakers was not available to the observers and media.

This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Balochistan Assembly proceedings conducted by Center for Peace and Development (CPD) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted