KUALA LUMPUR: Speaker Tan Sri Johari Abdul will make a ruling within three days on the issue involving Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli and Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong (BN-Ayer Hitam) on the cost to develop the Central Database Hub (Padu).
According to Johari, Dr Wee has officially written to him over the matter and he will scrunitise facts behind the issue before he makes a decision.
“I have conducted investigations and I have also written to the Minister.
“Give me two to three days to decide and a decision will be made at the soonest possible time,” said Johari in Parliament on Monday (Nov 11) afternoon.
Johari was responding to Chong Zhemin (PH-Kampar), who cited Standing Order 36(6) and (12), claiming that Dr Wee had misled the House and not Rafizi.
Johari then told Chong to sit down, urged him to be calm and not make any assumptions
“Dr Wee has written to me and it is the Minister’s responsibility to answer to me.
“From there I will make a decision. For that, Kampar, please be patient,” said Johari.
There was a light moment when Afnan Hamimi Taib Azamudden (PN-Alor Setar) stood up to correct Johari for wrongly pronouncing Kampar as “Kapar".
“I meant Kampar,” said Johari, who in jest pointed out that he was speaking with his Kedah dialect.
Standing Order 36(12) states that any members who mislead the Dewan Rakyat may be referred to the committee of privileges for the offence, while Standing Order 36(6) prohibits an MP from imputing improper motives to any other member.
At a press conference later, Chong said Dr Wee cited a news report from The Edge in July which claimed that the development and implementation of the Padu system from 2023 to 2025 is expected to cost RM85.27mil.
“It is clear that the RM85mil is for three years, and the Minister was referring to the cost as of now, which is RM31mil.
“So, these two answers do not contradict each other,” said Chong.
On Friday, Dr Wee said the RM85mil cost on Padu was put on the parliamentary record at least twice and it was regrettable that despite this, he had been accused of getting his facts wrong.
Dr Wee said that on July 1, a written response was provided for a question posed by Datuk Siti Zailah Mohd Yusoff (PN-Rantau Panjang), who asked about the development cost of Padu.
“The response given was RM85.27mil. On July 11, another question by Tan Hong Pin (PH-Bakri) had asked about the implementation cost of Padu and the same answer was provided - RM85.27mil,” said Dr Wee
Dr Wee said it was baffling that Rafizi did not issue a ministerial clarification to correct the RM85.27mil figure as it has been four months since it was revealed on July 1.
“Suara Keadilan also reported the same thing, so will Rafizi blame them too?” asked Dr Wee.
Recently, Rafizi said it was untrue that Padu was developed with an allocation of RM85mil, saying that only RM31mil had been spent as of September.
According to Rafizi, the RM31mil included RM800,000 on the servers, firewall and network security, RM4.6mil for platform database encryption and other purposes, and RM6.4mil for cloud services.
The heftiest expenditure on Padu, said Rafizi, was the RM19.3mil for nationwide registration operations.
