THE ministers’ winding-up session was delayed by 35 minutes today as members disputed Parliament’s new Covid-19 restrictions.

“What is the point of Parliament if the minister is only required to read the executive summary for 20 minutes?” said Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim in the Dewan Rakyat today.

“This is against the spirit of parliamentary democracy, where issues should be debated and questions to be asked of the government… not just read speeches and upload the text on websites,” said the PKR president.

The Port Dickson MP and more than half a dozen opposition MPs had requested Speaker Azhar Azizan Harun to be more flexible with the limit on the number of MPs who can attend a Dewan Rakyat session and the format for the ministers’ winding-up speech.

The former deputy prime minister said that ministers’ winding-up session will involve many MPs and those MPs who had raised the issues must be allowed to be in Dewan Rakyat.

“The MPs who raised the issues must be allowed inside when the minister answers. But this 80-MP limit has curtailed their right to be here,” said the 73-year-old.

The Perikatan Nasional government is scheduled to respond to the MPs on the Budget 2021 Bill today after more than two weeks of debate involving 84 out of the 222 MPs at the policy (Second Reading) stage. Scheduled today is the Prime Minister’s Department, followed by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Ministry of Defence and Works Ministry.

Dewan Rakyat is scheduled to vote for Budget 2021 on Thursday (November 26).

However, unlike in the past, only 80 MPs are permitted to be inside Dewan Rakyat at any given time unless it’s for division voting.

PN has also reduced the time given to ministers to address the issues raised over the budget to 20 minutes.

But PN’s de-facto law minister Takiyuddin Hassan (Kota Baru-PAS) deflected the issue to the Health Ministry and said “We are only complying with Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah’s advice that we limit the duration of the sessions.

“MOH’s advice was, ‘the longer Parliament sits, the riskier it is’,” said Takiyuddin.

“As such, the minister only reads out the executive summary within the allocated (20 minutes) time. The text that is not read out will be uploaded onto the website.”

Takiyuddin, however, did not respond to the opposition’s query on whether the ministers will be answering any supplementary questions.

In previous parliaments, the ministers are also required to respond to any supplementary questions posed by MPs. But under the PN government, such sessions have been reduced to academic levels.

The weekly Minister’s Question Time, for instance, is now a session where the minister reads out the answers without being required to respond to any queries.

Former Health Minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad (Kuala Selangor-PH) said “We have already complied with all the guidelines (regular Covid-19 tests, social distancing, etc) imposed by Parliament.

“Why do we need to reduce Parliament sessions any further? Is this based on science?” said Dzulkefly.

But Azhar stood his ground, and brushed aside the concerns.

“Why do you raise this now when we had decided earlier? This is just like Budget Day, when you asked to allow more MPs in.

“We will have another meeting after this,” said the PN-appointed speaker. – November 23, 2020.