Dismissal of motion to review Premier, Cabinet's travel expenses a ‘planned charade', says Chong
Chong says what the Speaker did earlier today has undermined the function of the DUN on providing an oversight on the Executives. – Photo by Roystein Emmor
KUCHING (May 28): Padungan assemblyman Chong Chieng Jen is unhappy that a motion submitted by him at the Sarawak Legislative Assembly (DUN) was dismissed by Speaker Tan Sri Datuk Amar Mohamad Asfia Awang Nassar.
In a statement, he said what the Speaker did earlier today has undermined the function of the DUN on providing an oversight on the Executives.
'The main reason it has come to such is because of the overpowering 80-2 majority the GPS (Gabungan Parti Sarawak) enjoys in the DUN sitting. If such unbalanced government to opposition ratio continues, more extravagance and wastage of public funds will be kept from public eyes and swept under the carpet,' said the Democratic Action Party Sarawak chairman.
He was referring to the motion seeking review of the Speaker's decision to disallow the question by Pending assemblywoman Violet Yong on the detailed expenses of the Premier and Cabinet ministers official overseas trips.
Asfia had cited multiple procedural and substantive breaches under the DUN's Standing Orders in dismissing the motion.
Chong was also unhappy that Asfia allowed Wilfred Yap (GPS-Kota Sentosa) to speak on the motion without even allowing him, the mover of the motion, to start debate on it.
He described this as a 'planned charade'.
'He (Asfia) seems to have subscribed to the claim by ADUN for Kota Sentosa that I should go and ask the Prime Minister on the expenses of the Prime Minister and federal Cabinet ministers' official oversea trips. For the information of the Speaker and the ADUN for Kota Sentosa, information of the expenses of the Prime Minister and the federal ministers' official trip has been made public in a parliament answer.
'If the federal government can reply such a question in Parliament, there is no justification why the state government cannot reply such a question in DUN. The Speaker's reliance on foreign investment to justify the huge oversea trips expenditure of the state ministers is misplaced,' he said.
He pointed out in the supplementary supply bill for 2025, it was mentioned the Premier's office alone needed RM100 million as its 'rental for air-chartered service'.
He said that figure does not even include the expenses for official oversea trips of the other 10 ministers and 26 deputy ministers.
'Last year, the Ministry of Local Government, Housing and Public Health alone, sought additional RM3 million for overseas trips.
'Even taking the Premier's office's RM100 million rental of air-chartered expenditure alone without counting the overseas trips of other ministries, it is still too extravagant given that the whole of the federal cabinet's oversea trips in 2024 was only RM44 million,' he said.
Chong was referring to the ruling by Asfia on May 26 in dismissing a question by Yong concerning the overseas travel expenses.
Asfia had stated that the costs involved were merely a 'pittance' and 'trivial' compared to the billions in foreign investments the state has successfully attracted.
'If we compare the foreign investment, the country attracted a total RM378.5 billion while Sarawak attracted RM14.12 billion – 3.7 per cent of the country's FDI. In contrast, the RM100 million is more than double the RM44 million spent by the whole federal cabinet on oversea trips,' he said.
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