By Joseph Tawie | November 14, 2011
Free Malaysia Today

KUCHING: Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud’s budget announcement this morning at the State Legislative Assembly was ‘illegal and unlawful’, according to the state opposition DAP.

State party chairman Wong Ho Leng added that the proceedings was a ‘breach of the standing order’ and that the CM’s budget introduction was ‘tainted with impropriety.”

Taib, who is also state finance minister, had tabled the Supply (2012) Bill, 2011 during the State Legislative Assembly sitting here today.

According to Wong apart from failing to give the opposition assemblymen advance copies of the Supply Bill 2012 and the Supplementary supply Bill as mandatorily required by Standing Order 63, the assembly had also switched off all their microphones.

“We are saying the whole procedure this morning is wrong. It is irregular and breached standing order and it is therefore unlawful.

“The budget introduced by Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud is very much tainted with impropriety and illegality for being in breach of the mandatory requirements of standing order 63.

“Standing Order 63 has mandatory or compulsory words and it says the draft estimates of state expenditure and revenue for the succeeding years should be laid upon the table before the introduction to the Dewan of the annual supply bill.

“Now all these documents were received by us at 10.07 am this morning. Standing order 65 is also breached,” said Wong, Bukit Assek assemblyman.

He was commenting on the first day of the sitting of the state assembly, the second after the April state election.

There are 15 opposition assemblymen – 12 DAP and 3 PKR – and one independent member in the 71-member State Legislative Assembly.

Rushed budget

According to Wong, the Dewan must comply with standing order 63.

“But before the bills are introduced the Dewan must comply with standing order 63.

“All these must be on the table and should be given to us earlier for us to go through,’ he said.

Wong said that DAP had been in the Dewan since 1996 and this was the first time that the Supply Bill and the Supplementary Supply Bill were not placed on the tables.

He also noticed that it was the first time that the Chief Minister’s budget speech was not broadcast live by Radio and Television Malaysia (RTM).

“Everything was so quiet this morning and all of a sudden it was done before 11.00 am. But why was the rush?

“(That there was) something wrong was very obvious,” he said.

Wong said that while the Chief Minister was presenting the Supply Bill, he had to interject telling the Speaker that the microphones of the frontline bench of the opposition members were not working.

“I suspect that our PA system was sabotaged in order not to allow us to raise any objection right from the beginning for reasons unknown to us.

Sabotage of microphones

Wong said that State Legislative Assembly was constructed at a cost of RM297 million equipped with up-to-date facilities and had been given an allocation of RM9 million to maintain it for next five years.

“The building is not yet five years old, and yet we see this PA system is malfunctioning.

“Don’t tell me that this problem is carried forward from the old state assembly building,” he said.

He said what is baffling the opposition is that the PA system was always non-functioning when they wanted to raise questions or seek explanations.

“Because of this, we think it is more sabotaged rather than technical problem,” he added.