As a consumer advocate for more than three decades and a strong supporter of government initiatives, I am certainly shocked and saddened that the Barisan Nasional members of parliament will not insist on the setting up of a parliamentary select committee on water management if the cabinet rejects the proposal.

By so doing, they will confirm the entrenched view that BN MPs neither have the guts nor the conviction and the political integrity to do what is right and expected as representatives of the people who put them in seat of power in the first place.

It will also give the impression that BN MPs are self-serving politicians more interested in protect the rights and interests of the 'powers-that-be' rather than the rights and interests of the common people.

This stance of the backbenchers is certainly a shocking and violent departure from the preached - but not practised - slogan of 'accountability, transparency and good governance' that is so often bandied about by the present administration.

It must be pointed out, that the 'compromise offer' of an allowance in time for the draft bills to be studied before they are tabled in Parliament is certainly of no value as we can be sure that backbencher would want to address pertinent and fundamental issues for fear of a 'political backlash'.

This was already seen in the controversial Penang Outer Ring Road case.

I am aware that the government wants to table the National Water Service Commission Bill and the National Water Services Industry Bill during the current session of Parliament, which will end on April 28.

Perhaps, in their view, only with the passing of both bills in Parliament could they (the government) set up the National Water Services Commission (Span) to monitor the privatised water industry.

In all fairness, there is nothing wrong with this, but, there should also be accommodation for the concerns of the rakyat too, with perhaps, an extension of the present sitting to hear views in addition to the setting up of the select committee.

So far, the manner in which this issue has been addressed by the Energy, Water and Communications Ministry leaves a lot to be desired. Ditto the attempt by Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz to drag the King into the issue by saying that the latter wanted the water privatisation programme to be in place by the end of the year hence the idea of the select committee being dropped!

Statements like these certainly send the wrong message to a nation of over 26 million consumers whose lives may be affected in one way or another by unilateral decisions.

The writer is the president of the Consumers Association Of Subang and Shah Alam, Selangor (Cassa).