DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang wants the Health Ministry to state if it had really advised the government to hold a one-day parliamentery sitting.

Lim said he doubted the health officials had told Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Takiyuddin Hassan, who is in charge of parliamentary affairs, to limit the session to one day only on May 18.

The May 18 sitting will only hear the royal address and approve the government’s economic stimulus package for the Covid-19 fallout. It will not allow oral questions, ministers’ question time or MPs to table motions.

“Did  the Health Ministry advise against the holding of Parliamentary meetings, including virtual parliament and select committee meetings?

“(Is the ministry) against parliament holding the government to accountability and scrutiny  for all actions related to the Covid-19 pandemic?

“I am quite sceptical that the idea of  a one-day meeting of parliament on May 18 had come from the Health Ministry,” the Iskandar Puteri MP said today in a statement.

He said director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah should clarify this in his daily media conference today.

“If the idea of a one-day parliament had not emanated  from the Health Ministry or the advice of specialists, the minister  of parliamentary affairs should eat humble pie and ask the cabinet on Wednesday to rectify the mistake of a one-day parliament.”

Lim and other opposition MPs have pressed the government to hold a longer sitting, citing the examples of parliaments in the UK and Canada which had improvised their sittings to meet the conditions for social distancing during lockdown amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Pakatan Harapan has proposed that the number of MPs attending to be reduced so as to practise social distancing while still making quorum.

The May 18 sitting will be the first parliament to convene this year after it was postponed from March 9 by the Perikatan Nasional government, which ousted the PH government in early March through defections and political manoeuvering.

PH contends that Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin is avoiding a longer sitting so that he will not face a test of his legitimacy through a vote of confidence. – April 27, 2020.