PETALING JAYA: Najib Razak has taken to task de facto law minister Liew Vui Keong for saying that Putrajaya cannot decide on having a Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQT) in Parliament unless there is a request for it in writing.
The former prime minister pointed out this is despite Pakatan Harapan (PH) pledging in its GE14 manifesto to have 30 minutes allocated for PMQT every week that the Dewan Rakyat is in session.
“Another example of an excuse by PH when they don’t want to fulfil their manifesto promises,” Najib said on Facebook, citing Liew’s recent remarks on this in an FMT report.
Liew previously said that there was no need for a PMQT now because Dr Mahathir Mohamad answers questions anyway during Minister’s Question Time (MQT) and the normal question time.
On Tuesday, Liew told FMT that the onus is on MPs to present a motion on the matter and see that it is passed first. This is because the “particular modus operandi that they want has not been made out to me in writing”.
“So I can only second guess what they really want,” he said, noting that there was no time to have this realised in time for the July parliamentary sitting either as it starts on Monday.
Najib said it was likely that the government coalition thinks Malaysians are not smart and will “accept whatever that the PH government decides without asking if their excuses make sense or not”.
MCA publicity bureau chairperson Chan Quin Er said it was “farcical” to blame MPs for this. She said Liew had come up with the most “inane justification” by “blaming it all on MPs” for not asking for it in writing.
“MPs may not have made the request in writing, true, but Liew has forgotten one very important aspect: PMQT by itself is a written promise made out, in fact, to all Malaysians, not MPs,” she told FMT.
“We honestly did not expect that we have to spell it out for Liew, but clearly, Liew seems to be a tad confused.”
Chan, who is also a Central Committee member of the party, said many are willing to believe the government when it says some promises can’t be implemented because of “financial or societal constraints”.
“But to put the blame on your peers for not writing in? That is a new low; especially coming from a high-ranking officer in charge of our laws.”
Chan said having a PMQT serves as a check-and-balance of “our, quite frankly, very powerful prime minister, who is prone to making questionable decisions, like introducing the third national car project and appointing himself chairman of our sovereign wealth fund”.
By doing a 180-degree turn on this particular reform, she added, Liew has “single-handedly denied counterbalances in the Dewan Rakyat and has effectively left room open for power abuses by the premier”.
‘Not enough questions’
When contacted, Liew said Mahathir is more than happy to answer questions from MPs, adding that he raised this issue during yesterday’s weekly Cabinet meeting.
“I’ll work with the (Dewan Rakyat) speaker on how best to formalise the existing MQT with the proposed PMQT,” he told FMT.
“There are frameworks that need to be set up. We can’t just simply say we want a special session for the PM to answer questions in Parliament without understanding how it should work,” he added.
The Batu Sapi MP said it is “well and good” to have a PMQT now but this will depend on active participation from the backbenchers in Parliament to ask questions. Otherwise, it will be a futile attempt.
He noted that as it is, it remains a challenge for him to have enough questions for the MQT on Tuesdays and Thursdays during parliamentary sessions. Parliamentary affairs also come under Liew’s portfolio.
“More often than not, when there are questions, the ministers concerned are not available to answer during these two fixed days,” he added, saying that he has called them out on this in the past.
Not only that but of the 222 MPs, 55 have been made either ministers and deputies, who do not ask questions but answer them in the house.
“This means from the 139 PH MPs, only 84 MPs are government backbenchers. Together with the opposition’s 83 MPs, they are the ones who ask the frontbenchers, including the PM, questions.”
The Westminster system in the UK sees about 650 MPs regularly asking questions during their weekly PMQT.
“Some ask us to follow the Westminster model in the UK, without truly understanding it.
“But the Q&A (in the UK) session is short and the PM doesn’t need to elaborate at length,” he said. “It’s normally only one to three minutes.”
Regardless, Liew said he will be working together with Dewan Rakyat speaker Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof’s office to see how the PMQT can be formalised in time for the October Parliament sitting. - FMT
Hmm!! Question PM in Parliament is good but just cannot tahan that all previous cats suddenly turned into Tiger now. Men with no intetgrity. Shame on all of you.
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