DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang charged today that the government has squandered RM50 million on renovating Parliament House in elegant style and class.

He said the money was wasted on such grand renovations when improving the debate quality and providing a world-class library and research service for MPs should have been top priority.

"(The) first week of the current Parliament was most unproductive and disgraceful in failing to address the teeming issues confronting the country," he said.

He listed several pressing issues such as last week's four-hour power blackout in five northern states, the school computer laboratory scandal and student gangsterism and hooliganism.

One-year delay

The veteran DAP leader said renovation work started early last year and was scheduled to be completed in February this year but has been extended by one year to March 2004 due to reports of the House being "haunted".

"It was reported that round-the-clock renovation work had to be halted after workers refused to work at night as Parliament House was "haunted", being the site of a former graveyard!"

Lim said in his final National Day message last weekend, Mahathir hit out at Malays, including the youths, for believing in the supernatural as a substitute for hard work to guarantee

success.

"What has he got to say about a "haunted Parliament" which I had never heard of in my 30 years in there," he said urging Mahathir to make a ministerial statement in the Dewan Rakyat on the issue.

He claimed the renovations were "exuding elegant style and class" and "more mesmerizing than five-star hotels and matching the mammoth splendour of Putrajaya landmarks.

'Kampung' library

"Unlike other Commonwealth parliaments, the Malaysian Parliament has no respectable library and absolutely no research facilities for MPs. Its library is at best a "kampung" library which any respectable college let alone university would feel ashamed of."

He said the typical "First World Infrastructure, Third World Mentality" is (actually) the parliamentary website "which shuts off its only useful feature - the Hansards - during weekends and public holidays".

"(It is) blissfully unaware of the 24/7 concept in cyberspace - available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year," he added.

School lab scandal

On the school computer laboratory scandal Lim said that parliamentary secretary to the Education Ministry Mahadzir Mohd Khir had failed to fully account to Parliament on the RM140 million scandal, resulting in 574 of the 600 labs being certified unsafe and in danger of collapse.

"Why wasn't the Cabinet Committee and Public Works Department reports on the school computer lab scandal made public?

"What actions had been taken to recover payments already made to school computer laboratory contractors whose contracts have been terminated, and whether contractors had been or would be charged in court," he said.

Lim said Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had pledged late July that the errant contractors would be charged in court.

He also asked if any action had been taken against ministry officials for their negligence in allowing the contractors/consultants to default in their obligations throughout the country in a national project which would cost RM762 million.