Perak’s 3-hour assembly history: Pakatan livid

According to Perak DAP, the assembly sitting of three hours is the 'shortest in the history of Perak'.

IPOH: Pakatan Rakyat elected representatives are furious that the state Barisan Nasional government has treated  today’s State Legislative Assembly three-hour sitting as a mere rubber-stamping exercise to satisfy the legal requirement of a six-month duration for the house to sit in.

Article 10 of the Standing Orders of the Perak State Legislative Assembly states that there shall be a meeting of the assembly once at least in every six months.

Former menteri besar and state Pakatan chief Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin said: “BN is only interested in fulfilling the six-month legal requirement by mere rubber stamping but does not want to address the problems faced by Perakians.”

Nizar told FMT today that such a cosmetic exercise was a waste of taxpayers’ money as the people’s grievances and problems remained unresolved.

He said that BN was selfish in only ensuring its rule of the state was not broken and did not seem to be serving the interests of the people who had elected it to office.

Nizar had asked the BN assembly Speaker R Ganesan to extend the duration of the assembly to another three days as major issues concerning the welfare of the people had to be addressed urgently, but his request was rejected.

Nizar said during the one-hour oral question session, only six of Pakatan’s questions were answered.

Also the motion by former Pakatan assembly speaker V Sivakumar to pass the anti-hopping law in Perak was overruled by the majority of BN elected representatives.

Only six questions answered
State DAP vice-chief A Sivanesan said: “This assembly sitting of three hours is the shortest in the history of Perak.

“We had submitted 153 questions but only six questions were answered.”

He claimed that BN was afraid to extend the sitting for three days as it will be facing a lot of unpleasant questioning by the Pakatan representatives.

“This short session is a major blow to the 2.7 million voters in Perak who had expected good governance from BN,” he said.

When contacted, Ganesan denied all the allegations but agreed that the sitting was held to satisfy the legal requirement of six months’ duration.

However, he denied that the one-hour allocated time for oral questions was too short but that it was the standard procedure.

Ganesan said there were only two agendas in today’s sitting.

“One was the passing of the Perak Civil Service Amendment Bill and the other was the motion by Sivakumar for the anti-hopping law,” Ganesan clarified.

The MIC state deputy chief pointed out that it was not possible to pass the anti-hopping law at state level as it has to be first approved at federal level by Parliament.