KUALA LUMPUR: Lately questions on the amount of emoluments and allowances received by Cabinet Ministers and members of the administration were hotly debated in the Malaysian social media.
There were quarters claiming that the ministers received certain allowances including parking allowance said to be more than RM5, 000, to the extent of drawing severe criticism from netizens who described the amount as excessive.
However, the amount of emoluments and allowances received by a Cabinet minister or member of the administration was something that could not be publicly announced because it was subject to the Official Secrets Act 1972.
Several ministers and deputy ministers contacted by Bernama via messages on the WhatsApp generally confirmed that the parking allowance was totally non-existent.
Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah in his official Twitter account said, “As far as I know, I don’t have any parking allowance.
In a separate tweet, Saifuddin also dismissed as untrue the alleged parking allowance that was tweeted since Wednesday.
The issue of the parking allowance cropped up on Wednesday when the owner of Twitter account @1Obefiend questioned the alleged ministerial parking allowance of RM5, 000, but this was disputed by the foreign minister.
A day later, an infographic shared by Twitter account owner @iam_meelo, claimed that Malaysian ministers received, among others, an entertainment allowance of RM10, 500, housing allowance of RM10, 800, people’s representative allowance of RM10,650 and parking allowance of RM5,700.
Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok, in her response, said, “The statement that was made viral recently on ministers being given an allocation of RM5, 000 for parking fees is not true. Ministers can claim parking fees with receipts under miscellaneous allowances; there being no difference from most other public officials.
“It must be remembered that when Pakatan Harapan (PH) ministers took over from the previous ministers, we took a 10 percent pay cut compared to the salaries of the ministers under the previous administration. This has been in force from June 2018.”
On May 23 2018, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced a cut of 10 percent in the basic salary of ministers to demonstrate the sensitivity of the PH government in facing the financial problems of the government.
Commenting on the same issue, Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin in her message to Bernama said, “Of course I have not heard of the parking allowance…for ministers…anyway there are many allowances we did not claim such as…telephones/toll/electricity…we also try to save in purchasing air tickets via on-line…”
Several members of the administration contacted by Bernama also emphasised that the allegations were nonsensical.
Deputy Minister of Tourism, Art and Culture Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik said, ”Yes, such allowances are non-existent. Confirmed.”
Also showing their support was Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Fuziah Salleh who said, “Confirmed none. Definitely nonsensical!”
Deputy Minister of Housing and Local Government Datuk Raja Kamarul Bahrin Shah Raja Ahmad, in his feedback said, “I have never heard of it… since I became Deputy Minister for the past one and a half years I have not heard of the parking allowance.”
An officer at the Prime Minister’s Department when asked on the allowance received by the Prime Minister particularly on the parking allowance, said, “There is no allocation for parking allowance. The photograph that was viralled was fake.” – Bernama
