TRASH talking in Parliament will be severely curtailed from now on, because Speaker Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof has banned a number of words from the lower house.

“Henceforth, ‘Pordah, Pi, Perompak and Communist’ cannot be used in the House,” said Ariff after a protracted argument involving backbenchers and opposition MPs today.

The issue started after Willie Mongin (Puncak Borneo-PH) and Ismail Mohamed Said (Kuala Krau-BN) traded barbs over whether Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng (Bagan-PH) should be referred to the Rights and Privileges Committee.

Unhappy with Ariff’s decision not to refer Lim, Ismail wanted the Speaker to order Lim to retract the word “rompak”.

“Can the Speaker make a ruling for the Bagan MP to retract that word and have it expunged from Hansard?” asked Ismail.

This prompted Willie to challenge Ismail, because Ariff had earlier ruled that Lim need not be referred to the committee.

During the exchange, Wilie told Ismail to “Pordah”, while Ismail returned a “Pi”. Several opposition MPs threw in “Communist” as well.

To bring an end to the spat, Ariff said he would ban the words being used in Parliament.

During a debate in Parliament last year, Lim used the word ‘rompak’ when he told the lower house that RM19.4 billion was missing from the GST refunds account.

The opposition took issue with this, alleging that Lim had intentionally misled Parliament and was attempting to blame the previous government for the missing monies.

However, after a lengthy investigation, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found that the money did not go “missing” but was used by the previous government to cover revenue shortfalls from GST collection.

“Pordah” means “go away” in Tamil while “Pi” is the equivalent in colloquial Malay. “Communist” is a term Umno MPs often hurl at their DAP counterparts, while DAP commonly return fire with “Perompak” or robbers.

Meanwhile, Ariff said it was unnecessary to get Lim to retract his words from last year’s Parliament sitting.

“All words have their own context and the Bagan MP has already explained what he meant to PAC during the hearings.

“As such, there’s no need to revisit that issue now,” said the former judge. – July 17, 2019.