When faced with relevant questions and criticisms, it is sad that the progressive Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz asked former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to be a ' jantan ' (man) and resign.

Sometimes, it is sad that our leaders fail to understand that they are merely wakil rakyat (people's representatives). When a rakyat asks a question, answer it. Don't ask him to resign. Don't ask the person to leave Malaysia. Don't answer his queries with insults and public persecutions.

Today, there is so many questions that have surfaced and we, the Malaysian people, are still waiting for answers. In a recent report in the Sun, someone asked the former premier 22 questions, which I believe our present Prime Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, must answer too.

Here, I just want to ask a further eight questions and I hope that our PM will answer.

Question 1: Identify who the government-linked companies (GLCs) are? Tell us who owns the shares in the GLCs? How many shares do the present prime minister's children, their spouses and/or his relatives own in these companies?

Question 2: What are the privatised projects and government contracts that have been given to companies that members of the families of the prime minister, his deputy and ministers have interests in?

Question 3: What are the privatised projects and government contracts that have been given to companies that the families of former prime ministers and former deputy prime ministers have interests in?

Question 4: We know that Approved Permit (AP) is required not just for importing foreign cars but for other products as well. What is the list of items that require these APs? How many companies that members of the families of the prime minister, his deputy and/or his ministers have interests in obtained these permits?

Question 5: Why was the RM4.4 million paid to the US company as highlighted in malaysiakini ?

Question 6: Is the government setting up an independent royal commission to inquire into Project-M which allegedly resulted in hundreds of thousands of foreigners becoming Malaysians. This is a very serious matter as it goes to the very root of the social contract entered into between the different race groups when Malaysia achieved independence, and also the agreement between the states, especially Sabah and Sarawak, when they joined the Federation.

Question 7: What is the government going to do about the Jasin MP? Is the Anti-Corruption Agency and/or the police investigating what the has MP admitted to doing. His actions looks rather similar to the corruption charges levied against former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim. No one is above the law, and it becomes all the more important that MPs and/or ministers be subjected to the same treatment. And if nothing is done, then the message that is going down to the rakyat is that it is alright to do these bad things. Is this the message that Mr Clean, our prime minister, wants to communicate.

Question 8: What has happened to the relatives of our present prime minister who were identified being part of Iraq's oil for food scandal. Was there any investigation done here in Malaysia? Or was it a scandal overseas but not an offence here in Malaysia. We were happy to know that Abdullah was not involved but what happened to those Malaysians who were actually involved.

Transparency and accountability

There are so many more questions that the rakyat want answers to, and for far too long the government has gotten away without being accountable and transparent.

It is interesting to note that whenever there is a split in Umno, the rakyat is suddenly made aware of questionable things that the government and its leaders did in the past. It happened when Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah was ousted from Umno and Semangat 46 was formed. It happened when Anwar was ousted from Umno. It is happening now with our former premier suddenly questioning what is happening in the present government. This time around, it is even better as we are also getting news of the questionable actions done during Mahathir's premiership.

There must be more transparency and accountability in the government, and some of the things that could be done towards this end are as follows:

The Parliament should ensure that all Hansard records of parliamentary proceedings be published immediately, not later than one day after, on the Parliament website. In fact, this website must be made user-friendly so that people can quickly know what were the questions/matters discussed and go immediately to that relevant page.

The written questions by the MPs and the answers by the respective ministers and/or persons should also be available on the Parliament website.

In fact, draft bills must also be available on the website, so that the rakyat will know what is being tabled and be able to have our say or tell our representatives how to respond to that particular Bill.

There must be a record of all the agreements, memorandums of understanding, free trade agreements and treaties that the government signed, ratified and/or entered into. The full text of all these must be available on the government and/or the relevant ministry websites.

Now, Malaysia is considering signing a free trade agreement with the United States but we cannot find the draft of this agreement on any government websites. Why is this?

We will no longer be satisfied with just an assurance from the minister concerned that Malaysia will only agree to what is good to Malaysians. The rakyat wants to have a say, we want to be able to provide our input and be consulted in all agreements, MOUs and treaties that will ultimately affect all Malaysians.

Malaysians will no longer be treated as budak kecil (small kids) and be allowed to remain in ignorance like the proverbial ' katak di bawah tempurung ' (frogs under a coconut shell).

The government's trick to give us abundance of movies, soap operas and football games will no longer distract the rakyat from the real issues affecting the nation.

Suffering the consequences

For too long, the rakyat has been apathetic and trusting of our leaders and the government to do the necessary and ensure our well-being but alas we awake now to discover that our government has not been clean, efficient and trustworthy. We now suffer the consequences.

Our fuel prices went up by 40 sen to about RM1.92. Electricity tariffs have increased 12 percent. Prices of food and all other basis necessities will surely also rise. We find Malaysia, embarrassingly, being one of the countries with the biggest gap between the rich and the poor.

We discovered last year that about 30 percent of our national schools do not even have electricity and toilet facilities. We discovered that about 30 percent of our graduates do not have jobs. We learnt that the government is spending about RM80 million to re-train graduates - is our university education and training not sufficient? We discovered that more employees will lose their jobs, the latest being those in MAS.

Malaysians in 2006 are no longer going to be hoodwinked by the government of the day, and it is our hope that the prime minister and his government will show us, the people of Malaysia, the respect we rightly deserve and be accountable and transparent.