Sunday November 22, 2009

Dispelling the bias claims

By ZULKIFLI ABD RAHMAN

SPEAKER Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia was forced to give a lengthy lecture to the MPs on how the Chair made its decisions to allow or disallow debate on certain issues last week.

The explanation came when Lim Kit Siang (DAP — Ipoh Timur) accused the Chair of being influenced by the Executive after it rejected the Opposition’s emergency motions.

Pandikar Amin said he and his two deputies were never influenced by political considerations when making decisions.

“Whether the Chair allows or rejects a motion is our prerogative. Our decisions are not influenced by anyone, including the Executive,” he said, and cited several examples where motions by Opposition MPs were allowed in the past.

Among the Opposition’s motions rejected last week was the one to cut RM10 from the salary of Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop.

Chong Chen Jien (DAP — Bandar Kuching) submitted the motion after claiming that the minister was biased in disbursing development funds.

Chong claimed that the funds received by his constituency were inadequate and that more allocation was given to areas outside Bandar Kuching.

Datuk Mohamad Aziz (BN — Sri Gading) and Datuk Bung Mokhtar Radin (BN — Kinabatangan) asked the Chair to reject the motion which they regarded as ill-intentioned and a waste of time.

“This is just an attempt by the Opposition to gain political mileage. What’s more important is that the people are the ones who benefit from the allocations given,” said Bung Mokhtar.

Nor Mohamed in his reply denied any element of power abuse in the disbursement of the allocations.

He described the Opposition MPs as being hypocritical for complaining about allocations given to the people.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz also had to fight off accusations that the Government was being biased in the distribution of income from the country’s oil royalty.

The Opposition MPs produced the Parliament Hansard of 1974 which recorded second prime minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein’s statement on the oil income as proof of their claims that the Government had recognised Kelantan’s right to receive oil royalty.

Nazri insisted that Kelantan had no legal right to demand royalty payment apart from the “wang ehsan” or compassionate payment.

This, he said, was because Tun Razak had not specifically used the term “royalty” when the Petroleum Development Act was tabled in 1974.

He added the term “royalty” was also not mentioned by one of the architects of the Act, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, who was Finance Minister then.

When Opposition MPs asked Nazri who would actually receive the money, Nazri replied: “We will give to the state government, but in terms of financing of projects, but not cash.”

This attracted howls of protests from the Opposition bench.

The matter was laid to rest when Pandikar Amin told the MPs that ultimately the people would decide for themselves later on.

An unexpected incident occurred last week when several Opposition MPs protested against Deputy Foreign Minister A. Kohilan Pilay’s attempt to give his winding-up reply in writing.

Kohilan had earlier told Deputy Speaker Datuk Ronald Kiandee that he would reply to questions raised on his ministry in writing since time was short.

However, several Opposition MPs including N. Gobalakrishnan (PKR — Padang Serai) and M. Kulasegaran (DAP — Ipoh Barat) wanted Kiandee to direct Kohilan to continue replying.

“Where’s my reply on the Sri Lankan refugees?” Gobalakrishnan shouted.

Several minutes of chaotic shouting ensued before Gobalakrishnan asked for a bloc voting to be carried out.

A bloc vote is made when MPs insist that the Chair fulfil their requests for certain issues to be debated. At least 15 MPs must be in the House for the motion to proceed.

The bell was rung but due to a technical fault, it was not heard outside in the lobby where MPs were taking a break.

Kiandee then directed the House ushers to inform the MPs outside before he allowed the counting to proceed.

The Barisan Nasional MPs won by 37 votes to the Opposition’s 21, thus putting the brakes on the Opposition’s demand.

The House sits again tomorrow.

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