Pak Lah's Quality Wrapped.

PM wants quality reps

Malaysian Prime Minister Pak Lah urged Barisan Nasional MPs to perform beyond the expectations of their electorate and become “MPs of substance and quality”.

Pak Lah told his MPs that they must always update themselves on issues concerning their constituencies as well as on national and global issues.

Tangga Batu MP Datuk Idris Harun said Pak Lah advised the MPs not to be emotional in putting forth their concerns as a lot of work could be done in a rational and professional manner.

“He said there would be 1,001 problems and these problems can never be solved all together but that we will be judged on how we manage them,” Idris said.

Regional and Rural Development Minister Datuk Dr Tiki Lafe said Abdullah told the MPs while they could be critical of the Government during their debate, they should not let their actions bring a bad image to the Government.

“He also told us that we should help maintain the ‘feel good factor’ among the people. He said the people had a wrong perception that the economy was weak and we have to explain to them the real situation,” Dr Tiki said.

Ufff, we so often hear this, didn't we? But are we seeing reality?

We have MP and ministers who would release criminals for a fee, ACA chief being investigated by police for corruptive behaviors, police officers being investigated by ACA for corruptive behaviors and ministers and deputies being investigated for corruption. Most of all we had allegations by our former prime minister regarding his former deputy prime minister who had used his power and political positions to influence the Iraqi government to award oil deals to his family members in the "oil for food programme". And we are told that these ministers need not resign from his ministerial position, nor the need to vacate his seat. Where is the parliamentary convention that pronounced ministerial responsibilities?

Ministerial responsibility or Individual ministerial responsibility is a constitutional convention in governments that a cabinet minister bears the ultimate responsibility for the actions of their ministry. Individual ministerial responsibility states that members of the cabinet must approve publicly of its collective decisions or resign.

This means that if waste, corruption, or any other misbehaviour is found to have occurred within a ministry, the minister is responsible even if the minister had no knowledge of the actions. A minister is ultimately responsible for all sorts of actions taken by ministerial staffs, whether he has full knowledge or without. If misdeeds are found to have occurred in a ministry the minister is expected to resign. It is also possible for a minister to face criminal charges for malfeasance under their watch.

The principle is considered essential as it is seen to guarantee that an elected official is answerable for every single government decision. It is also important to motivate ministers to closely scrutinize the activities within their departments. The reverse of ministerial responsibility is that civil servants are not supposed to take credit for the successes of their department, allowing the government to claim them.

Individual Responsibility means that ministers must be individually responsibility and accountable for their own conduct as well for the conduct of their department. A minister has a duty to Parliament to account for departmental policies and decisions. He must give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. If the minister misled Parliament, he is expected to resign. Examples of resignations in the United Kingdom were Edwina Currie, the Minister of Health, 1989 (Salmonella issue), Lord Carrington, Foreign Secretary 1982 (Falkland Island Crisis0, and David Blunkett, Home Secretary 2005 (Fast-track assistance of mistress nanny).

But Pak Lah's ministers and MPs never need to resign. In fact, he had said they need not resign even though they or their departments were accountable and responsible for policies and decisions that had betrayed the trust of the people who had elected them. We had the ACA chief case, Johari Baharom case, AP fiasco, Toll road issues, and most of all, these departmental failures falls under the responsibility of the prime minister's department.


Is this quality rep? Ouch!