Azmin Ali raps two BN assemblymen for plagiarism

SHAH ALAM: The Selangor state assembly sitting on Tuesday has turned lively when Selangor Mentri Besar Azmin Ali accused two Barisan Nasional assemblyman of plagiarism, for allegedly posing an exact same question to the House.

In the beginning of his winding-up speech on the motion of thanks for the royal address by the Sultan of Selangor, Azmin said Hulu Bernam and Kuang assemblymen were found to have “plagiarised” each other’s question.

“I can understand if they pose a similar question, but the question they asked came in the same script, the same content and the same writing,” he said.

The question, said Azmin, sought to seek answer from the House regarding the mentri besar’s office structure, the function and standard operating procedure (SOP) on each staff, and the amount of salary and allowances of each staff.

This appeared to have irked Datuk Rosni Sohar (BN-Hulu Bernam), denying that it was form of plagiarism as the question was just “spontenously written”.

“The mentri besar should not have blown this out of porportion. As an MB, he can choose to answer any assemblyman he wants,” she said.

To this, Azmin said he had no problem to answer the question but argued that he did not know which one to answer to, resulting the answer to be postponed.

“I don’t know if Umno outsourced a company to come up with questions for them. But if they did, at least make sure it’s a different question. 

“Even in university, the students found to be plagiaring would be taken action against them,” he said.

Datuk Shamsuddin Lias (BN-Sg Burong) then came to their colleagues' defence, saying that this should not be made into an issue.

“What is wrong with franchising it to other people in order to get their views? Your duty is to answer the question posed, that’s all,” he said.

Selangor Speaker Hannah Yeoh then made a ruling to make a copy of the answer to be given to the two assemblymen.

Later, Sulaiman Abd Razak (BN-Permatang) rebutted, saying that a Penang Pakatan Rakyat assemblyman had also plagiarised a question in the state assembly.

“The DAP assemblyman plagiarised a question from BN at the Penang's last sitting. 100% the same. You don’t have to answer this. I’m just giving you this fact,” he said.

Earlier, the Selangor state assembly observed a minute silence for Rompin MP Tan Sri Jamaluddin Jarjis and the Prime Minister’s principal private secretary Datuk Seri Azlin Alias, who died in the helicopter crash last Saturday in Semenyih.

Prayers were also offered to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s father, Datuk Ibrahim Abdul Rahman who passed away last Sunday, and Selangor State Investment Centre senior manager, Noor Azmawi Abdul Aziz who died on Monday night.