GEORGE TOWN, July 4 — Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng (picture) is the “chief executive officer” of the state and could have overturned the unusual decision to cancel Question Time during the state assembly sitting yesterday, the Penang Barisan Nasional (BN) Youth said today.

Its information chief H’ng Khoon Leng, who sat in for the assembly’s morning session today, said Lim has the executive power to reinstate Question Time if he wanted to.

“He could over-ride the assembly secretary’s decision to cancel Question Time and have it reinstate for this session,” he told a press conference at the state legislative assembly building.

On Tuesday, assembly Speaker Law Choo Kiang announced the decision to cancel Question Time due to time constraints.

This prompted Opposition Leader Datuk Jahara Hamid (BN-Telok Ayer Tawar) to protest against the decision while accusing the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) state government of abusing its power to “‘gag” elected representatives from asking questions.

Lim had responded by stating his surprise over this decision and said the assembly secretary had made this decision based on recommendations from the state legal adviser Datuk Faiza Zulkifli.

He denied any knowledge of the reasons behind the cancellation of Question Time.

H’ng today question why PR had allowed questions during the previous term, its first term as the state government, but had done away with it for the current session.

“Now it’s their second term and they don’t allow oral questions. Is it because there is some big issue they want to hide?” he asked.

He said there were many issues to be raised and doing away with Question Time meant the opposition would have no avenue to query the state government over these issues.

State BN Youth chief Oh Tong Keong, who had also sat in today’s assembly session, said it was elected representatives’ responsibility to ask questions so that the state government and state exco could be accountable.

“I hope the Penang government will consider reinstating the oral Question Time,” he said.

The Penang state assembly session, which started on Tuesday, is scheduled to end tomorrow.