KUALA LUMPUR: Members of the administration have been urged to arrive early for Dewan Rakyat sittings instead of waiting for their turn to speak, ensuring smooth proceedings and avoiding absences that reflect poorly on the House.
Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Johari Abdul said the admonition followed an incident during Thursday (Nov 5) morning's sitting when questions could not be answered due to the absence of the relevant parties.
He said such situations arise when MPs scheduled to ask questions cannot attend for unavoidable reasons, resulting in their questions being skipped.
"Naturally, the Speaker will skip the question, as happened this morning. The Minister or Deputy Minister is outside, unaware because, according to the order paper, their turn is still far off. When their turn comes, they are not present either, so the Speaker has to skip it as well. As such, this does not portray a good picture.
"I would like to advise members of the administration to arrive early and be in the Dewan even if your question number is scheduled later," he said before the winding-up session of the debate on the Supply (Budget) 2027 Bill and the 2027 Development Expenditure Motion at the committee stage for the Rural and Regional Development Ministry in the Dewan Rakyat Thursday.
Johari also requested ministry officials, particularly secretaries-general, to advise ministerial officers to regularly check for changes in the question sequence with the Dewan Rakyat secretariat.
"This is because at the last minute, names or question numbers sometimes change due to requests from ministers or other unavoidable reasons that we have to accommodate," he said.
He said all parties must play their role in improving the conduct of Dewan Rakyat sittings, especially now that the institution has administrative autonomy.
Earlier, several Opposition lawmakers raised concerns over the absence of Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad and his deputy, Datuk Hanifah Hajar Taib, from answering questions during the Question Time session in the Dewan Rakyat Thursday morning.
Their absence was noticed after Deputy Speaker Alice Lau called on Zahir Hassan (PH-Wangsa Maju) to ask the third question addressed to the Health Ministry, as listed in the Order Paper.
During the session, the second question scheduled for the Transport Ministry was skipped after the MP for Kepala Batas, who was supposed to table the question, was absent from the lower house of Parliament, causing the session to move on to the next question.
However, the minister or deputy minister responsible for answering the next question was outside the hall, so that question was also skipped when their name was called. - Bernama
