KUALA LUMPUR, May 11 — Pakatan Harapan’s parliamentary reform will introduce the Prime Minister’s Question Time as one of the three key changes, which will be tabled in the upcoming July sitting, MalaysiaKini reported today.
Deputy speaker Nga Kor Ming said the Prime Minister Question Time will emulate what is being practised in the United Kingdom (UK), where it is held in a single session every Wednesday for the prime minister to answer questions from the parliaments members within 30 minutes.
“This is one of the best practices implemented in the UK’s House of Commons.
“The PM will come to answer questions by the MPs. He cannot delegate the task to his deputy. We actually plan to live telecast the Question Time, so you don’t have to rely on other unfounded news,” Nga was quoted to have said in his speech at the “New Malaysia — Old Politics” forum at Wisma Methodist in Kuala Lumpur today.
Nga said the next change to be introduced would be the Ministry Day, where he said different days would be allocated for a particular ministry.
“For instance, Monday is the Finance Ministry day. So it is compulsory for minister Lim Guan Eng to come and answer questions pertaining to his ministry. For other days, he can focus on his work and he doesn’t need to spend the entire week in the parliament,” said Nga.
The next parliamentary sitting will also see the proposal on the Commission of Parliamentary Services Bill 2019, which would separate the parliament from the executive power through the Prime Minister’s Department.
“We want to bestow parliament to become an independent house in line with the doctrine of the separation of powers.
“Now the present structure is parliament is subjected to the Prime Minister’s department.. it doesn’t make sense. It should be independent from it,” said Nga, who had previously spoken of the plans to table the Bill in last October.
The de facto law minister Datuk Liew Vui Keong is currently in charge of parliamentary matters.
