Sarawak state assembly opposition leader  protested this morning, claiming that Speaker Asfia Awang Nasar was manipulating the questions submitted for question-and-answer sessions of the assembly.

NONE Chong ( right ), who is Kota Sentosa assemblyperson, stood up soon after the session ended at 10.15am and said only one of the 10 questions that were answered came from the opposition.

“The way the questions are arranged, for the record, is most unfair.

“Is the government afraid to answer the questions submitted by the opposition, such that the questions are manipulated in a way that the oral questions never get answers?

“And also, for the record, most of the opposition members are submitting questions for written answers because in the past, unfair practices have been carried out against the opposition. 

“All our questions are put to the last , and they never see the light of the day. That is why we have submitted more questions for written replies,” Chong said.

'Priority is given to oral replies'

Replying to Chong, Asfia denied that the state assembly was manipulation the questions submitted by  opposition members as most of them asked for written replies to their questions, while most of the BN members asked for oral replies.

“Priority is given to the oral replies,” the speaker said, pointing out that if Chong was not happy, he could submit a written motion for him to address the matter.

NONE “If you are unhappy you can submit a written motion to the speaker,” Asfia said.

“But if you make an oral complaint, the answer is simple: priority is given to those who submit questions for oral answers.”

Talking to the media later, Chong asserted that the speaker was most unfair and pointed out that the opposition members should be entitled to having 40 percent of their questions answered.

“It should be three for BN and two for the opposition,” he said, pointing out that BN elected representatives are 41 (excluding ministers and assistant ministers), while the opposition has 17 members.

“How is that only one question from the opposition, out of the top 10 questions, was answered?” he asked.

“The speaker is giving an excuse that most of us submitted questions for written replies and that is irrelevant as some of us did submit questions for oral answers.

“It is true that most of us submit fewer questions for oral answers nowadays because in the past they have been unfair to us.

“Most of our oral questions are arranged at the back and at the end of the day, there is no time to answer the questions.

“We have to wait for another six months to submit the same questions, hoping that this time we will get the answers. If not, we have to resubmit the same questions and wait another six months for the answers,” he said.