I was stunned when I stood up late last night to debate the 2009 Budgetary estimates for the Defence Ministry to be told by the Deputy Speaker Ronald Kiandee, that MPs are limited to five minutes each!
The Defence Ministry has a budget of RM13 billion for next year and is one of the six big-spending Ministries marred by mega scandals of multi-billion ringgit defence procurements.
Speaking in protest under the five-minute limit, I touched on two issues.
One is on the RM1.6 billion Eurocopter helicopter scandal – expressing concern that unless the Public Accounts Committee report on its inquiry into the Eurocopter deal is tabled in Parliament by today, Parliament would be denied of an opportunity to have a debate in the current meeting on the PAC findings and recommendations, making the PAC report quite academic and even useless.
I stressed that the PAC report should be made public in advance of any parliamentary debate so that aviation experts and even aircraft manufacturers could review the evaluation process followed in the Eurocopter deal as so far no independent experts apart from the RMAF/Mindef had been invited to provide expert opinion on the various aspects of the decision-making process. Continue reading “5-minute debate for RM13 billion Defence Ministry budget 2009”