Thursday, December 24, 2009
Cabinet: Parliament Sitting A Priority
A Kadir Jasin

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THE New Straits Times today headlined: “Parliament meeting a priority – drop everything to attend, Barisan Nasional PMs told.”

The paper quoted a directive, which it said, was issued on Dec. 23 in response to the Dec. 14 near defeat of the 2010 Budget when 82 BN MPs were absent.

The Supply Bill was passed by a majority of there. Only 66 BN MPs were in the House against 63 from the opposition.

Quoting unnamed Ministers, the NST said the Cabinet at its weekly meeting yesterday “had discussed the matter at greath (sic) length and with great concern.”

The Prime Minister, Mohd Najib Abdul Razak, who is also Finance Minister, had been reported as having expressed regret and disappointment over the close call.

The report appeared in the online edition of the paper in the morning but was later removed. When asked, a senior member of the staff responded: “Was told they did.” Asked if there was an outside inference, he said: “Tak.” (No).

I have published the list of the absent BN MPs, which included 18 Ministers, in the posting of Dec. 18 entitled “KPI, Undi Belanjawan dan Akhlak Wakil Rakyat.”

I hope the Pakatan Rakyat has the courage to reveal the identities of their absent MPs. I dare not reproduce the list available in the cyberspace because the PR politicians are prone to suing journalists, writers and bloggers.

So when PAS vice-president Salahuddin Ayub called for the replacement of the Official Secrets Act with the Freedom of Information Act I was delighted.

This, said the Pas leader, would assure full freedom to the media and bloggers. Let’s hope that he and his freedom-loving colleagues walk the talk.

Salahuddin made the call at the inaugural convention of the opposition alliance in Shah Alam on Dec. 19. As it stands, the PR leaders top the list of politicians taking journalists, writers and bloggers to court.

In this sense, the BN politicians appear more tolerant to criticisms and negative reports by the mass media.
Posted by A KADIR JASIN at 4:54 PM 0 comments