KUCHING: It has been suggested that the coming sitting of Parliament should be done online in order to adhere to the movement control order (MCO) and avoid the cost and problems of resolving the attendant difficulties.
When making this suggestion, Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii pointed out that this had been done in other countries such as the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia.
The parliaments of these counties had met using video conferencing in order to practise social and physical distancing which is required in the fight against Covid-19.
Dr Yii welcomed all precautions that need to be taken before the coming parliamentary session, but to do Covid-19 testing before the single-day sitting on May 18 might not be productive for Sarawak and Sabah’s MPs.
“This mean all the extra resources may need to be used especially when the MPs both Sabah and Sarawak need to fly all the way to Kuala Lumpur much earlier to do testing and just for the one-day sitting,” he said in his Facebook posting.
Dr Yii was responding to a letter he received from Dewan Rakyat secretary Ridhuan Rahmat stating that in order to ensure the safety of all MPs attending the sitting, all of them are required to be tested for Covid-19 at least two to three days before entering the Parliament complex.
“This Parliament session will open only with the Yang Di Pertuan Agong’s address, but after that there won’t be any question-and-answer time with the ministers in the main chamber or even special chambers,” he said.
He pointed out that flights to Kuala Lumpur from East Malaysia were also very limited and costly, and if all the necessary precautions were to be taken, they would be screened before being transported to Parliament for the session and then back to the airport for the flight home.
“Once we reach Sarawak, based on the current standard operating procedure (SOP), we will need to be quarantined for 14 days.
“I will abide by any directive of the Health Department as we don’t want to compromise the safety of fellow Sarawakians, but this will compromise our efforts to serve our constituency during this tough time, and merely for a ceremonial single-day parliament sitting,” he said.
He said all these will use extra resources of the government when the economic situation is bad.
