By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal - The Malaysia Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, April 8 — The federal government has no plans to enact right to information legislation.
Deputy Minister of Information, Culture and Communications Senator Heng Seai Kee said in Parliament that the 1 Malaysia concept is sufficient to ensure transparency.
She was replying to Klang MP Charles Santiago during Question Time.
“Up till now it has never been discussed by the ministry or government. However, the rights of people to get information are guaranteed. The execution of 1 Malaysia has given people room and access to obtain information as long as it does not go against the laws and acts that have been outlined.”
“Therefore the government has not considered enacting this Act or making this a focus point of government transformation,” said Heng.
Santiago then pointed out that there was good reason for the introduction of such an act and pointed out that that the NEM (New Economic Model) espoused by the government has recognised that more transparency is needed to combat rent-seeking, and corruption.
“If Selangor can do it, why can’t the federal government do so?” asked Santiago in reference to the state’s recent declassifying of documents.
Heng was not impressed and rejected the reasoning.
“There is no correlation between a country’s corruption index and rights to information…if we see neighbouring countries that have signed the Act, we can find that actually their corruption index is high, higher than Malaysia,” said the deputy minister.
This, in turn prompted Santiago to make a passing remark, saying that “she does not understand the right to information.”
Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin then told the Klang MP to sit down, and said “you can’t have two bites of the same cake.”
“But the cake is very small,” Santiago retorted and laughed.
KUALA LUMPUR, April 8 — The federal government has no plans to enact right to information legislation.
Deputy Minister of Information, Culture and Communications Senator Heng Seai Kee said in Parliament that the 1 Malaysia concept is sufficient to ensure transparency.
She was replying to Klang MP Charles Santiago during Question Time.
“Up till now it has never been discussed by the ministry or government. However, the rights of people to get information are guaranteed. The execution of 1 Malaysia has given people room and access to obtain information as long as it does not go against the laws and acts that have been outlined.”
“Therefore the government has not considered enacting this Act or making this a focus point of government transformation,” said Heng.
Santiago then pointed out that there was good reason for the introduction of such an act and pointed out that that the NEM (New Economic Model) espoused by the government has recognised that more transparency is needed to combat rent-seeking, and corruption.
“If Selangor can do it, why can’t the federal government do so?” asked Santiago in reference to the state’s recent declassifying of documents.
Heng was not impressed and rejected the reasoning.
“There is no correlation between a country’s corruption index and rights to information…if we see neighbouring countries that have signed the Act, we can find that actually their corruption index is high, higher than Malaysia,” said the deputy minister.
This, in turn prompted Santiago to make a passing remark, saying that “she does not understand the right to information.”
Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin then told the Klang MP to sit down, and said “you can’t have two bites of the same cake.”
“But the cake is very small,” Santiago retorted and laughed.
No comments:
Post a Comment