Kit Siang sees red over absent ministers
Malaysiakini.com
Nov 22, 2006
Soon Li Tsin

Parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang is upset that cabinet ministers are absent from the August House to provide answers on matters of public importance.

The veteran politician said he has penned a letter of protest regarding this to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

He said the premier must ensure that his ministers are responsible enough to attend Parliament, answer questions and reply to debates.

“(This is to) meet the most elementary requirements of accountability and not pass the buck to deputy ministers and parliamentary secretaries whose stock answers are to promise to give written answers subsequently,” he told reporters at the Parliament lobby today.

Time to wake-up 

The Ipoh Timor MP said he has yet to receive clarification from ministers on the contradicting numbers provided regarding the bumiputera corporate equity ownership issue.

The figures include the 36.6 percent stated by Deputy Finance Minister Dr Awang Adek on Nov 7, 21.8 percent by Minister in Prime Minister’s Department Mohd Effendi Norwawi last week and 33.7 percent according to a recent study by Universiti Malaya.

“Effendi should be in Parliament to give a full and satisfactory explanation for such conflicting figures,” Lim said.

This is to honour the premier’s undertaking to make public the Economic Planning Unit’s methodology and data in calculating the equity figures to restore public trust and confidence in official statistics, he added.

Lim also said ministers have not answered his questions on the half-bridge, Southern Integrated Highway, Matrade scandal and the allocation of funds to Chinese primary schools in Johor.

The opposition leader said the situation in the country is becoming worse in the eyes of the world and foreign investors in light of racial politics, the murder of the Mongolian national, the RM50 million heist in Penang and the nation’s dismal performance in the Transparency International corruption index.

“It is time for the whole country to wake up,” he stressed.
    
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