I was taken aback when Chong Zemin put up the post that a blog had disclosed that there are 29 MPs who did not submit a question for the coming parliamentary meeting starting at the end of the month, and that five of them are from DAP. The five DAP MPs cited are:
• Charles Anthony Santiago – Klang • Er Teck Hwa – Bakri • Hiew King Cheu – Kota Kinabalu • John Fernandez – Seremban • Dr. P. Ramasamy – Batu Kawan
I have checked with the five DAP MPs and they have confirmed the mistake of missing the deadline for the submission of questions, i.e. April 8, 2008, for the month-long inaugural meeting of the 12th Parliament starting on April 28 – although they would still be able to take part in the supplementary question stage of the daily 90-minute question time.
The Party had reminded DAP MPs not to miss the deadline for questions and lose the opportunity to pose questions in the first meeting of Parliament (an important aspect of the work of Opposition parliamentarians) but mistakes are still being made.
Work pressures as new elected representatives, lack of experience with parliamentary standing orders and breakdown of communications have contributed to the five DAP MPs not fielding a single question for the first meeting of the 12th Parliament.
These are not acceptable excuses as voters in the March 8 “political tsunami” have high expectations of DAP MPs and they have the right to expect the new batch of Opposition MPs to live up to a higher benchmark of parliamentary performance and to subject them to scrutiny.
The Party leadership will ensure that these mistakes will not be repeated in the rest of the current parliamentary term
The five DAP MPs and the DAP apologise for this regrettable episode.