Selangor State government gives Selangor State Assembly Persons(ADUNs) yearly a sum of RM500,000-00 to be used in their respective constituencies. If the ADUN is a member of the State Exco, he/she gets RM600,000 [Why this discrimination?]
But the money apparently is only given to the Pakatan Rakyat ADUNs .... not the UMNO-led BN ADUNs or other ADUNs.
For State Constituencies where the non-Pakatan Rakyat ADUN won, the money for the said constituencies(i.e. that RM500,000) is given to some Pakatan Rakyat ADUN to spend for that said constituencies.
What I see wrong with this is that this was exactly the same thing that the UMNO-led BN was doing - giving yearly payments only to its own ADUNs and MPs for usage allegedly in their 'constituencies'.
We have criticized this UMNO-led BN's practices in the past, calling for the end of discrimination - asking that all allocations that are being given to individual ADUNs/MPs should be given to ALL MPs/ADUNs irrespective of the party affiliations.
The people in the constituency have elected their rep - hence this decision must be respected, and all elected ADUNs [or MPs] must be treated the same ...equally [Art. 8 Federal Constitution].
If Pakatan Rakyat is different.... then the Selangor government should be giving this RM500,000 directly to the ADUNs the people wants, irrespective of whether they are from the Pakatan Rakyat or not.
Why is Selangor Government not giving the money to the UMNO-led BN ADUNs? Their answer is that the UMNO-led BN Federal Government is only giving a lot of money to its own ADUNs/MPs and not others, so we do the same. Comparatively, what their ADUNs/MPs are receiving is so much more than RM500,000...
I say, that if that is the justification why Selangor is not giving the money to the non-Pakatan Rakyat ADUNs - then it is pathetic. It is certainly wrong. Just because someone did a bad thing to you, it is not right to do the 'similar bad thing' to them. We have to be different and do what should be the RIGHT thing to do - i.e. Selangor should give all ADUNs the same RM500,000 for use in their respective constituencies
Set the standards... set the example... set up good democratic practices that respect the democratic process - the choice of the people.
There was pyrotechnics galore at the Selangor Select Committee for Accountability, Competency and Transparency (Selcat) right from the start of the hearing this morning but with a dramatic difference.
Unlike previous hearings, state officials were left out in the cold as two Pakatan assemblypersons turned on each other.
State watchdog committee chairperson Teng Chang Khim kept trading verbal punches with his DAP colleague Ronnie Liu during the morning session over the latter's style of disbursing constituency allocations.
Things even reached the stage where Teng decided to switch off Liu's microphone to stop him from speaking.
Hauled up
Liu, who is the state assemblyman for Pandamaran, was one of three Selangor Pakatan Rakyat lawmakers hauled up by Selcat to explain spending discrepancies in their constituency allocations.
The other two were Sri Setia assemblyman Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad and Sri Muda assemblyman Shuhaimi Shafiei.
Liu of DAP is state executive councillor for local government and research.
He is also in charge of dispersing the allocations for the other two seats won by the BN, former Selangor menteri besar Khir Toyo's Sungai Panjang and MCA assemblyman Yap Ee Wah's Sungai Pelek.
Nik Nazmi, the political secretary to the present Selangor Menteri Besar, and Shuhaimi are both from PKR.
Liu, Nik Nazmi and Shuhaimi were said to have exhausted 99%, 87% and 71% respectively of their yearly allocation within the first six months last year.
Every state seat is entitled RM500,000 as constituency allocation while the amount for an exco member and the Speaker is RM600,000..... - Malaysiakini, 1/2/2010, Selcat fireworks: Teng switches off Ronnie
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