Storm of protest over Budget 2021 vote most welcome

 

MP SPEAKS | I see the protests in a very positive light.

Even my former political secretary, Dyana Sofya, protested as well as other DAP leaders, including the DAP Malacca Ayer Keroh assemblyperson Kerk Chee Yee and the Selangor Subang Jaya State assemblyperson Michelle Ng.

But there had been a number of misconceptions. There is, firstly, the misconception that the opposition MPs, apart from those who stood up calling for a division, had succumbed to pressure and voted in support of Budget 2021.

This is not the case. The opposition MPs, including those who stood up calling for a division, all voted against the budget – but it was by a very loud negative voice vote against the ‘Yes’ voice vote and not by division, with every MP recording ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in the vote.

In my article on Nov 21, I said:

“Members of Parliament have two choices when the 2021 Budget comes up for a second reading vote next Thursday, Nov 26.

“Firstly, to force a showdown on Thursday whether to accept or reject Budget 2021; or secondly, to fully explore the avenues available in the parliamentary process by proposing amendments during the committee stage of the budget to the most objectionable provisions like the RM85.5 million revival of the Special Affairs Department (Jasa) to carry out negative propaganda campaign for the government, and then for a definitive vote to be made during the third reading of the budget on Dec 15.”

As the Pakatan Harapan presidential council decided on Nov 25 to unanimously object to Budget 2021 by calling for a division and voting against it, and this information had been communicated to Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Shafie Apdal both of whom assured the support of Warisan and Pejuang MPs, all opposition MPs from DAP, PKR and Amanah were prepared to support the call for division and to vote against Budget 2021 yesterday.

I was completely in the dark about the last-minute decision by the opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, not to call for a division although I could surmise the reasons, among which are first, the advice by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to MPs to support the budget and secondly, the Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz’s winding-up speech where he announced extra goodies for the budget which have yet to be tested in the committee stage before the third reading of the budget on Dec 15.

It was also obvious that there were not enough numbers to defeat Budget 2021 as Umno MPs have backtracked to give full support for the budget - but this had never been a factor by DAP and Harapan MPs in deciding on whether to call for a division for individual voting in Parliament.

As the Agong has urged MPs to support Budget 2021 in view of the Covid-19 epidemic, it is even more incumbent on opposition MPs to give the finance minister more time until the third reading of the Supply Bill on Dec 15 to make the necessary amendments and adjustments to make the Budget 2021 the “Unity Budget” to unite all Malaysians to tide over the once-in-a-century Covid-19 epidemic. Or will he be stubborn and anti-unity and refuse to do so?

The finance minister had engaged with the opposition MPs before the presentation of the budget on Nov 6, but not after. Will he engage with the opposition MPs before the third reading on Dec 15?

Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz

After the parliamentary meeting yesterday, I spoke to Anwar about requisitioning a meeting of the selection committee of the Dewan Rakyat to set up a Parliamentary Select Committee on Corruption and Integrity which should have the overall term of reference to raise public integrity in Malaysia to be among the top 30 countries in the world.

But the Select Committee on Corruption and Integrity should have as its first task to look into the Global Corruption Barometer for Asia 2020, released by Transparency International two days ago and which reported that more Malaysians regard their MPs as corrupt as compared to the people of seven other Asian countries – Bangladesh, Taiwan, Myanmar, Philippines, China, Cambodia and Vietnam – as 36 percent of Malaysians surveyed think that their Members of Parliament are corrupt.

The Select Committee on Corruption and Integrity should also look in other aspects of the Global Corruption Barometer for Asia 2020 – that 72 percent of Malaysians think government corruption is a big problem and that 39 percent of Malaysians believe that corruption is on the rise.

As the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2020 would be released in two months ago and is likely see a regression in both the TI CPI score and ranking, undoing all the good work of the 22-month Harapan government in its fight against corruption and to establish public integrity, the Select Committee on Corruption and Integrity should also examine this problem.

As a result of the Covid-19 epidemic, for 19 days of the November/December meeting, Parliament has been meeting from 10am to 2pm, which is a serious reduction of the daily parliamentary sitting from the usual six hours a day to four hours a day.

This has seriously hampered the role of MPs to hold the government to account and scrutiny and threatened the smooth and successful functioning of the constitutional doctrine of the separation of powers among the executive, legislature and the judiciary.

For the next 12 parliamentary sittings from Nov 30 to Dec 17, 2020, Parliament should revert to six-hour daily sitting - from 10am to 1pm, with recess from 1pm to 3pm when the Parliament chamber should be fully sanitised in view of the Covid-19 epidemic, and resumption of the evening meeting of Parliament from 3pm to 6pm.

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LIM KIT SIANG is the DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri. - Mkini

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.