New faces among the Pakatan ranks in Parliament have exposed a string of spending irregularities, reports Steven Sim.
Last week was the final week for the first sitting of Parliament this session.
Within one week, three new Pakatan Rakyat MPs shocked even our BN colleagues with our exposé of spending irregularities.
The first exposé was by Zairil Khir Johari when he questioned why YTL Corp was awarded lucrative contracts for the federal government’s 1BestariNet learning programme despite it not being the company’s field of expertise.
The second exposé was by Rafizi Ramli when he revealed the identity of the suppliers of the GE13 indelible ink after the government’s repeated refusal to name them.
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Finally, on Thursday, the final day of the sitting, I revealed to the press that the government had spent a whopping RM55m to organise last year’s Youth Day celebration in Putrajaya.
I was also shocked by the discovery myself. How did the government justify spending RM11m a day for the five-day programme? How will this RM55m benefit the young people of our country? And finally how and to whom was the contract awarded?
This is one of our roles as opposition Members of Parliament. We have the responsibility to check on the government of the day, to ensure that at least Barisan Nasional will not have a field day to do whatever they please.
And this round, with many more new MPs from Pakatan Rakyat, I can assure you, Najib and his cohort will have a harder time.
Steven Sim is the Member of Parliament for Bukit Mertajam.
19 July 2013
AGENDA RAKYAT - Lima perkara utama
- Tegakkan maruah serta kualiti kehidupan rakyat
- Galakkan pembangunan saksama, lestari serta tangani krisis alam sekitar
- Raikan kerencaman dan keterangkuman
- Selamatkan demokrasi dan angkatkan keluhuran undang-undang
- Lawan rasuah dan kronisme