I fully agree with the sentiments expressed by the MP for Balik Pulau, Dr. Nungsari bin Ahmad Radhi, expressing his distress that Parliament has not been able to play a meaningful role in the decision-making process in the country and the trivialisation of parliamentary proceedings by the mass media.
He referred to the daily parliamentary attendance "watch" of the News Straits Times since the start of the present parliamentary meeting. From the New Straits Times "watch", one can see that in all the five parliamentary sittings in April, the Dewan Rakyat had been meeting without the requisite quorum every day. It is really impossible to explain to the people why there are only 11 MPs in the House at 6.15 p.m. on April 2 when there were a total of 192 MPs in the Dewan Rakyat!
However, parliamentary proceedings have not only been trivalised by the mass media, as shown by the very limited space or time given to parliamentary reporting, but also by the irresponsible attitude of many Ministers, who either do not bother to attend to their parliamentary duties or come to Parliament just to show their faces.
In the two-day Ministerial winding-up of the just concluded debate on the Royal Address, only three Ministers thought the parliamentary policy debate important enough for them to come to the House to reply personally, namely the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the Minister for Works, Datuk Seri Samy Vellu and the Rural Development Minister, Datuk Annuar Musa.
The Cabinet has a full complement of 27 Ministers. We know that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Mahathir Mohamad is on an official visit to Bahrain where he is also attending the Gulf Economic Forum. Can the Government Whip give a report to the House as to what all the other 23 Ministers were doing in the last days, which were so important that they could not attend to their parliamentary duties to reply to speeches and points raised by MPs during the policy debate on the Royal Address and have to delegate them to their Deputy Minister or Parliamentary Secretary?
The Minister who is most notorious for playing "truant" from Parliament, the Minister for Transport, Datuk Seri Dr. Ling Liong Sik, has not lived up to his New Year resolution to be more conscientious beginning this year to discharge his parliamentary duties.
The replies from some of the Deputy Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries have been quite unsatisfactory. For instance, the Deputy Foreign Minister, Leo Michael Toyad completely omitted the issue of Burma although I had spoken on the important issue in view of the pending admission of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) into ASEAN in the ASEAN Foreign Ministers� meeting in Kuala Lumpur in July this year.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Datuk Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, asked where I got the figure of RM500 million as the estimate by the Ministry of Youth and Sports for its national social service programme for 400,000 Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM), suggesting as if I had fabricated the figure or it had been derived from some underground channel.
I can accept if a Parliamentary Secretary misses a newspaper item, even though this is quite unforgivable when it concerns her own Minister, but when she answers in this House, she is not representing herself but the entire Ministry, and it cannot be that the hundreds of responsible Youth Ministry officials also miss such an important newspaper item.
For the information of the entire Ministry of Youth and Sports, the RM500 million estimate as required for the proposed national social service was given by none other than the Youth Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, himself, and this was reported in the front-page lead story of the Star on Friday, February 28, under the headline: "TIME TO SHAPE UP - Youth and Sports Ministry plans for three-month National Social Service."
I would propose that the Youth Minister should cause an inquiry to be made why even his own Ministry officials do not pay attention to what he has to say as to make his Parliamentary Secretary commit the parliamentary gaffe over the RM500 million estimate for the national social service programme.
This is another good example why there is a need for Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries to take their parliamentary duties more seriously and diligently.
I am impressed that the government is at last becoming more serious about the national disgrace that when other countries are aiming to connect all their schools to the Information Superhighway by the year 2,000, Malaysia cannot aim to provide power to all schools by the year 2,000, and that there are still 1,273 schools without electricity or with only limited power supply - with 632 schools in Sarawak and 495 schools in Sabah. The Rural Development Minister, Datuk Annuar Musa told Parliament yesterday that he was chairing a multi-Ministry committee to give top priority to provide electricity to all schools. When I asked him to submit a report on the electrification of all schools in the next meeting of Parliament, he said that since this was such an important issue, it should be presented earlier and not wait for the next Parliamentary meeting in July.
I am taking up the Minister�s offer and will ask for a monthly appointment with him to discuss on the progress of government plans to electrify all schools, beginning with the middle of next month.
I would suggest that this monthly meeting with the Minister for Rural Development on the electrification of all schools at the middle of each month be open to all MPs, regardless of party, who are concerned about this issue - as the electrification of all schools is another national issue on which MPs from all political parties can transcend their political differences.