The Dewan Rakyat speaker today defended his decision to allow the Prime Ministers Department to decline answering a question on how much allowance top government officials are being paid.

Replying to Kerk Kim Hocks (DAP-Kota Melaka) letter issued last Thursday, speaker Mohamed Zahir Ismail said the matter now rests with the Prime Ministers Department, which had declined to answer the question.

I am just endorsing that decision, explained Zahir in a letter to the opposition member of parliament.

In addition, Zahir said, a parliamentary standing order states that a ministers decision not to answer questions posed by MPs cannot be questioned.

Kerk first raised the matter on March 28, but was not given a reply due to some delay, according to Noh Omar, a parliamentary secretary in the Prime Ministers Department.

Last Wednesday, he received an unsigned written reply from the Prime Ministers Department which stated the House speaker had agreed not to reveal the information in Parliament to protect public interest.

Allowance not a secret

In response, Kerk issued a letter to Zahir questioning why the speaker decided that the matter be kept under wraps for the sake of public interest.

Rejecting the question because of public interest is not reasonable because the allowance paid to each government official is not something that should be regarded as a secret, said Kerk in his letter to Zahir.

Kerk urged the speaker to refer the individual, who had asked him not to reveal the figures in Parliament, to the Houses committee of privileges.

He called for the House to make a decision to preserve transparency and responsibility of the government and public interest by asking the Prime Ministers Department to make the matter public.

Kerk had claimed last year that ministers, deputy ministers and parliamentary secretaries were being paid hefty allowances without prior consultation with Parliament.