Beginning of an end!UMNO
Wow, some things really test our sense of reserve don’t they?A nation that cannot uphold its law cannot preserve its order
Many of us may have asked; when and why did the racial divisions in Malaysia start and who is to blame? Obviously, the racial divide did not exist in old Malaya, where the different races could live together in harmony in the kampongs (villages) and small towns. Now, it seems that we are forever at the brink of racial tension or even racial war. In fact, jihad (holy war) has been declared several times by the Umno-linked Perkasa against the Christians as well as the Chinese.
We should also ask why a-still-young-nation with all the potential to be prosperous could so quickly face impending bankruptcy. Also, what has happened to patriotism; did it burn out or was it never really instilled into our hearts? To find out, we have to go back in history.
The starting point
Whereas Onn was more for uniting the Malays from all walks of life, with the Chinese, Indians and other migrants under one organsation, and then jointly struggle for independence, the group of UMNO leaders led by the late Tunku Abdul Rahman was more interested in meeting the qualifying terms set by the British for achieving independence - no matter how onerous.
The idea of a non-communal political party
The British did not really want Malayans to be united as one, like in Onn's vision. Neither did the British really want the Malayan Union to succeed. So the Malays were led into rejecting the Malayan Union, paving the way for its dissolution.
Had the British been sincere, they would have backed Onn’s idea. Instead the British supported Tunku when he was elected the new UMNO president after Onn resigned. Onn had to quit after failing to garner the majority support from the delegates on his multiracial vision after his speech in the UMNO General Assembly in Kuala Lumpur in August 1951 backfired. The Malays have never been united since then.
British had ill intentions
The staff manning the UMNO offices were also reluctant to work with Tunku as they still supported Onn. In the end, Tunku had to abandon the old UMNO office bearers and create a new set-up, appointing his own people to manage the party and its activities.
Further proof of the British ill-intent was when they told the Malayan entourage negotiating for independence consisting of UMNO, MCA and MIC that Malaya could not be given independence since the three major races were not united! Onn's multiracial proposal was the best and it still is and the British also knew that. Yet, they managed to convince the Malayan delegates to agree on an Alliance with UMNO, MCA and MIC the pioneer members.
To their discredit, all three of them fell for it. Presumably this had been outlined by the British for Tunku to implement.
UMNO failed us from the start
UMNO may argue that it was the ingenuity of their leaders that helped Malayans gain independence without bloodshed. This is not true! There was indeed a lot of bloodshed but not amongst the UMNO people. What about the struggle led by other groups and individuals? Let us also not forget that during this period there were many other groups and individuals struggling and fighting for independence and with the inevitable bloodshed. We were not informed about their struggle as if the Alliance was the only one who struggled. PAS deputy president Mat Sabu had exposed this one-sided history for us. Besides the Communists, there were many others from all the races.
Nations that experienced, endured and managed to overcome all obstacles leading to the true sense of independence are usually of a different breed. The struggle instills real patriotism and their citizens really value what they have achieved unlike Malaysians too, who need to be lured to fly the Jalur Gemilang almost every time we try to celebrate the National Day.
In the end, the UMNO-BN celebration of the 31st August National Day has become something of a mediocre, wasteful, and meaningless effort, without zeal and substance, without the real feeling of patriotism at all. The annual procession is just for show as the number of people flying the Jalur Gemilang keeps dwindling year after year till the number of road vehicles flying the national flag can even be counted on our fingers. The national day celebrations are only being looked forward to by the Mat Rempits and the like, including their bohsias.
UMNO and Malaysia under Tunku Abdul Rahman: Going Nowhere
Malaysia under Tunku was not really independent, it had to depend on the British and they were more than willing to maintain their support, mainly due to economic reasons. The British had invested so much in Malaya in plantation, mining, banking, media and education. Furthermore, Malaya was one of the growing markets for everything English.After gaining independence, the Tunku was not able to really achieve anything more substantial. He was not even able to defeat the ragtag Communists, and Malaysia was still backward in every sense of the word. The young democracy and new nation was just at its infancy and without any coherent policy, objectives, vision and actions although there were some sort of localized economic activities in the towns, and racial harmony in the kampongs.
With the Communists still active not only in the jungles but also in the urban areas and their ideology spreading in the University of Malaya, real peace and unity as a nation were not attained during his reign. Even Singapore was separated from Malaysia. The economy was not doing well since Malaysia was more on a commodity-based economy, and at the mercy of the British who controlled prices and the trade itself.
At this stage of the nation building, Malaysians had nothing to celebrate or cheer about. There was nothing to hold on to, nor was there a sense of belonging. Not only were the business, finance and money still under the British, the Supreme Court was also in Britain. Nothing substantial belonged to Malaysia. The Malays in particular had nothing except for the small plots of land in the kampongs and the Malay rulers to be proud of. Tunku did not have any real plans for the Malays despite UMNO being so-called the United Malays National Organization..
Racism during Tunku’s period
But was it really a racial riot? Were both the Gerakan and DAP really so insensitive to the political situation that they organized the march and failed to control their members? The Alliance managed to win 77 out of 140 seats in Parliament; UMNO still held power. Furthermore it was very interesting to note that Malay opposition parties saw a sharp increase in votes in the peninsula, rising drastically from about 15% in 1964 to 25% in 1969. UMNO did not have the full support of the Malays and apparently the Malays did not agree fully with UMNO even then!
UMNO under Razak: His inaction led to the next stage of failure
The NEP was meant to re-engineer the wealth of the society, encompassing education, business opportunities, employment and preferences to eradicate poverty amongst the entire population and across all racial boundaries. But UMNO leaders took advantage of this policy to fatten their coffers leaving both the Malays and other poor Malaysians to continue being deprived of all that were intended for them. We can clearly see and understand the situation now.
Razak also empowered FELDA (which was formed by the British in 1956 for their own reasons) to aggressively embark on opening new land schemes and making Malays do something to upgrade and improve themselves. The FELDA story is still unfolding now.
As the Malays were earning some extra income, Tabung Haji ( the brainchild of Professor Ungku Aziz) was formed to inculcate the habit of savings for the rainy days and to help save enough money to perform the haj. Sad to say, as has been reported, Tabung Haji was not safe from the dirty hands either.
The siphoning of money that we see now, the unscrupulous civil servants and their abuse of power and unchecked corruption also started during Razak’s premiership. He was not able to closely monitor all the things that he had implemented.
One glaring example is the construction of the wooden houses for the FELDA settlers. But instead of houses, the settlers got what were basically just pieces of sawn wood nailed together with some sort of roofing to protect the inhabitants from the elements of nature. Yes, the 'house' was just a shed. These houses can still be seen in the FELDA settlements as a testimony to the plundering of the allocations by unscrupulous groups of people.
This was the beginning of the money-making schemes, and those in UMNO saw the doors opening to all the golden opportunities that had never existed for them before. The government officials too found the opportunity and took what they could and as much as they could.
When RISDA was formed to help the rubber small holders, they were provided with free fertilizers, weed poison and other incentives like the money to keep the rubber plantation clear of all other plants, shrubs and small trees. This was to ensure improved rubber production, easy maintenance, safety and prevent the rubber plantation to be any form of hideouts for vermin, wild animals and the communists.
While they were supposed to be given the items free of charge, the officials still demanded money from the small holders and a substantial amount of the fertilizers and poisons went into the wrong hands and were eventually sold to the hardware shops to be re-sold to others. The money-making schemes were carried out openly to the extent the RISDA emblem on the sacks could be clearly seen. Yet, the authorities did nothing to stop the corruption.
Almost all the projects awarded to the UMNO-putras during this period was executed as Ali Baba schemes leaving the UMNOputras with just 5 percent of the profit which was too little. Since they were not real businessmen, they spent extravagantly within a few months finished all their gains. Thus more projects had to be given out to fulfill their lust. The Ali Baba business trend began here.
It was the same with other government projects and procurements. The instant noodles supplied as army ration were paid by the Ministry of Defense at RM0.65 per packet while the market price was just RM0.25 each.
The police and the army were also in a world of their own with free cigarettes, cheap alcohol, partying in their messes. They were oblivious to their surroundings. The police were so callous in their duties that the IGP was shot dead point blank by two assailants on a motorbike when his car halted at a congested road on his way to the office.
The inefficient civil servants were preoccupied with so many tasks in their offices. Hospitals and medical staff were few in numbers, and the school teachers were the most respectable group of people in society then. But unfortunately not anymore now.
The Biro Siasatan Negara (National Bureau of Investigation) was operational but they did nothing. At this stage, the UMNO government ignored all the warning signs of blatant corruption, misuse of funds and pilferage. As such, the next stage of failure was inevitable and more so under Hussein Onn, who was Razak's brother in law.
First huge scandal under Tun Hussein Onn
Sandakan in Sabah once held the world record of the highest numbers of millionaires (from the greedy rampage and corruption of the timber industry) per square mile. Sabah is now without a virgin forest except at the national reserve. This too will not be spared for long and Sabahans still remain poor today.
The first huge scandal for UMNO which was the RM2.5 billion losses by Bank Bumiputera Malaysia Bhd, which began in 1976 with its wholly owned Bumiputera Malaysia Finance (BMF) lending money to property developer Carrian Group in Hong Kong. The mess unfolded in1983 kicked off the Umno plundering tradition on a huge scale.
You see, no one was punished for the crime. UMNO leaders condoned such debacle creating a precedent that when one is a strong UMNO man and with proper connection, one can get away scot-free. The bailout tradition too began from this point on.
Since Malaysia was on auto-pilot, the ordinary citizens had to survive on their own.
Mahathir: All forms of failure and a sad lack of vision
Mahathir was the one who broke the national piggy bank, blazing the trail to unmitigated government borrowings. He failed to provide enough funds for rainy days. Many of his supporters boasted that he was famous for his vision, but time has proven that Mahathir in fact lacked it. He lacked vision simply because he was not able to see beyond himself.
Mahathir failed to understand the inherent economic cycle and be prepared for eventual downturns. He knew Lee Kuan Yew had special funds to be used under the power of the President. But Mahathir siphoned out the only real funds we had in Petronas, thus even the once rich Petronas has to borrow money now.
The police under Mahathir was for most of the time working for him and not much for the rakyat. The police was used to defeat the opposition, harass individuals, put people in jail using the ISA and determining the most suitable time for a general election. Crime was high since the PDRM was preoccupied with UMNO and Mahathir. Lawyers were know to be unscrupulous but it was during his time that the judiciary system was turned into shambles and judges could be openly bought, thus ending the integrity of the entire law and order of the country.
Mahathir also failed to uphold the monarchy by stripping the Malay rulers of their powers. The Malays have lost their last bastion of pride and for the rest of the Malaysians the last bastion of justice, as can be seen in the awkward position of the Sultan of Perak being manipulated by UMNO in the Perak power grab of 2009. The Perak Sultan sanctioned UMNO's coup d'etat, while the Agong only had enough power to acknowledge BERSIH as legitimate, while the Sultan of Selangor had to play safe in the JAIS -DUMC case with UMNO breathing down his neck.
Mahathir in his endeavour to make Malaysia a developed nation by 2020, failed to safeguard the nation from being plundered by refusing to prevent and take action against corrupt people. This could be because he was himself a cohort in some, if not most of the fiascos. The Tajuddin Ramli-MAS scandal is an example and a living testimony to the failures of the Mahathir-era, while the RM12.5bil PKFZ scandal is still unfolding.
Mahathir also failed to see the inept capability of Badawi and the hopeless Najib who both have no real ability of their own. Nonetheless, one cannot turn back time or erase the systematic failures Mahathir caused. In any case, he was ready to pass the baton to Abdullah Badawi by 2003.
Badawi sleeping away
Badawi tried to create some economic corridors, have some fancy slogans like working together with him and Islam Hadhari, which he himself found difficult to explain. Till now, the questions ring: what are the corridors, the slogans and Islam Hadhari really all labout?
The economy became stagnant and to spur development Malaysia had to borrow more money. He was able to create some sense of economic activities but just for the elections.
Fortunately for him but unfortunately for the rakyat, he had the fourth floor goons headed by his beloved son-in-law, Khairy Jamaludin who made things worse.
Our nation was in jeopardy because it was being managed by a twenty-something de-facto prime minister. Although Khairy was an Oxford graduate, he was not savvy enough to run a country much to the disgust of Mahathir. Both the nation and UMNO are now in disarray. A classic example of a Khairy deal gone awry is the failure of the Shahrizat-linked Gemas NFC debacle.
Badawi did form the MACC but for what? They are just the same people from the Anti Corruption Agency (ACA) in different uniform.
Free for all, grab what you can now under Najib
Najib is long on ideas but short on action, thus has no results to show. Basically, this is due to his ideas being copycats of other systems, such as the Pakatan's Buku Jingga or economic blueprint.
Najib’s vanity
He engaged APCO and FBC Media for a full scale image makeover, spending at least RM55 million of tax-payers’ money for expensive propaganda to glorify himself, his government and his policies and having it screened on international channels like CNN, CNBC and BBC. This is utter stupidity of the highest level and Najib has failed miserably.
To repair the damage to his image, Najib should have rectified the mistakes and not try to whitewash them and incurring further blunders in the process. There is really no point in putting on thick make up during the day when everyone can see the thick layer of 'paint and powder'.
Transformation programs that go nowhere
His main showpieces are the six National Key Results Areas (NKRA), twelve National Key Economic Areas (NKEA) - all part of his Economic Transformation Program. On 23rd November, Bernama reported that Najib underlined six high impact programs to boost the growth of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to 8.7 by 2020 but, what about now or next year?
The economic policies that the UMNO-BN government under Najib have been undertaken but show no improvement in the economy. Thus, until now, it has been 'nothing for nothing Najibnomics'.
As for Najib’s Political Transformation Program, it has proven to be a farce - heavy on proclamations and full of doublespeak as in the recent Peaceful Assembly Bill, which actually restricts our freedom and not grant greater democratic space as he had promised.
Old habits die hard
The Najib government has also told the rakyat that it will not be involved in financing the mega-projects he has announced; they are mostly under the Private Financing Initiatives (PFI), he assures. But we were not told that the Umno cronies will have to borrow from the banks and none of the clear minded private banks would ever lend them any money.
The private banks know that these projects are just money-making schemes without any guarantee of success and will eventually need bailouts. Thus all the burden of financing has been given to Bank Pembangunan, the government bank, with money from the government. Still the money will be taken from our already depleting EPF and Tabung Haji or borrowed somewhere and bringing Malaysia closer to becoming another Greece.
Chaos at the ministries
The Ministry of Defense has set the plan moving for the purchase of new fighter planes from Russia as reported in a defense magazine but Ahmad Zahid Hamidi denied this recently. The ministry will also continue with the building of the exorbitantly expensive naval ships and boats.The Ministry of Education has embarked on building several campuses in Perlis and Pahang and even the HUKM pediatric hospital in KL and being awarded to their cronies.
The Ministry of Transport has already approved the KVMRT project, the Integrated Transport Terminal in Subang Jaya with another going to be in Gombak and in Melaka and as we all know Malaysia Airports Holding Bhd has a free hand to impose any charges on passengers and complete the KLIA2 tour at whatever cost.
The Ministry of Agriculture will eventually bail out the failed Gemas NFC project and the wasteful rice bowl “National Rice Bowl” project in Sarawak will get more money - some to be reinvested and the rest pocketed.
The Ministry of Finance will continue paying the PKFZ thieves and continue dumping more money into MAS despite the purported win-win share swap with AirAsia as MAS has already announced RM400 in losses recently. Petronas has been set to bail out TNB by absorbing the gas cost.
The Ministry of Tourism too have their money-making schemes through various advertisement projects, while the Ministry of Information uses FINAS through the loans and grants issued for movie productions and the misuse of FINAS assets for some influential individuals.
The other ministries too have their problems and these could be revealed later.
Enough is enough
Najib has turned Malaysia backwards by not trying to reject the wrong doings of UMNO-BN. Where his father was too busy, Najib's problem may be because he has his own scandals; thus a change of government is the only true means of saving this country. The recent UMNO AGM showed the country the party's true colors; its racists/fascist bent and the fact that it had no real agenda for the country.
So after tracking through the 6 prime ministers, all of whom came from UMNO, it is clear the party is the cause, the main ingredient, the catalyst and the main element of all the failures that have befallen the nation.
We have had enough and enough is enough!
The restlessness for change triggered by the Arab Spring, and subsequently spread to Singapore and Thailand (as shown in their recent elections), has made the recently-concluded Umno general assembly a focus of much attention.
Observers were looking for clues to answer the critical question in the backdrop of imminent election: will Umno — one of the world’s longest reigning political parties — also fall in the current wave of rising popular dissent?
The clues are aplenty.
As someone who has watched the live telecast of the opening session of the assembly, my first impression of the top hierarchy on stage is that they looked worried and disconcerted. This feeling of diffidence was not dispelled by the president’s opening speech, which lacked the kind of substance that reassures that all is well and the party has the wherewithal to move the country forward for the next five years.
The next few days saw leaders engaged in the usual racial exhortations and opposition-bashing, and requests for more government patronage. Rather unique to this assembly, leader after after leader pleaded for refrain from backstabbing and sabotage from within, for which the entire assembly took a collective oath to pledge their loyalty to party and party president.
In the concluding speech, party president Najib Razak warned the delegates point-blank that if Umno is defeated, it will be doomsday for the Malay race, Islam and the Malay royalty. Turning to the “28 million Malaysians out there”, he said bluntly that either they elect the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) for a brighter future or face destruction under the opposition.
Assembly is only warmongering
Reviewing the entire episode, my conclusion is that this Umno assembly is only an exercise of beating the war drums and calling members to battle. There were no deliberations over the unprecedented challenges we face, and how BN will take the nation out of the current quagmire. Najib’s only reference to these issues is his oft-repeated recitation of his various “transformations”, without coming up with convincing substance that these are anything but slogans.
The only credentials he attempted to present is Umno’s supposed “glorious” records of past achievements, which are highly questionable, as this claim is debunked by the fact that Malaysia has slipped badly in every field against its former peers or inferiors like Singapore, Korea and Taiwan. In fact, Malaysia is now struggling to keep pace with former laggards like Indonesia and Thailand.
The inescapable impression that one gets from the proceedings of this assembly is that Umno is fighting for its own survival and nobody else — certainly not for the country, nor for the Malays for that matter.
If everything is fine as claimed, then why is the Malaysian government plunging more steeply than ever into record level of debt in recent years in an unbroken spell of 15 years of hefty budget deficits despite enjoying unprecedented boom in petroleum prices? Why has the private investment to GDP ratio stuck stubbornly at the doldrums of 10 per cent (among the lowest in the region) since the Nineties when it peaked at 37 per cent? Why are the people crying out in pain over ever escalating costs against stagnant income?
Transformation an illusion
If Najib’s “transformations” have worked, then why has corruption worsened as reflected in the unprecedented plunge in Corruption Perception Index monitored by the prestigious Transparency International, and the continuing massive leakages in the BN administration as recorded in the latest Auditor-General’s Report?
If BN has looked after all the races and communities well as claimed, why has the temperature of racial and religious tension risen sharply in recent years?
Umno in this assembly adopted the strategy of demonising the opposition and frightening the Malays with catastrophe to their race, and the country at large, with unspeakable disaster to the nation, if Umno is not re-elected to power.
Umno claims that if Pakatan Rakyat comes to power, Chinese will rule the country through the DAP, and the Malays will be reduced to beggars, Islam substituted by Christianity, and the Malay Sultans’ fate in peril. But this nightmare scenario is easily lampooned when the DAP points out that in the 2008 election, DAP only fielded 47 candidates, against 97 by PKR, and 66 by PAS for the contest to fill the 222-seat Parliament. Besides, PAS is completely Malay and PKR is dominated by Malays. So how can the DAP overpower PKR and PAS — as well as Umno for that matter — to become the super power in Malaysian politics?
The fact that Umno has to resort to construct such a ridiculous bogeyman to achieve its political object is manifest of its utter desperation and panic.
Pakatan shines through
Najib, in his concluding speech, said that Pakatan Rakyat, if elected, will destroy the country.
But how can that be when the Pakatan-controlled state governments have been consistently commended by the Auditor-General for their prudent financial management, and distinguishing themselves for keeping corruption at bay and introducing transparency and accountability to their respective administrations?
Isn’t it a fact that their good governance has been recognised and confirmed through the robust influx of private investments in spite of having suffered under ill treatment by the BN federal government?
Isn’t it a fact that the Pakatan state governments have treated all the races with fairness and justice?
If the Pakatan political leadership has proven to be incorruptible and competent and just in their management of resources and treatment of the people, then isn’t it logical to conclude that such a political leadership is exactly what Malaysia needs to check the current slide and restore confidence and good governance to move the country forward?
I am quite sure that the people have the good sense to make the right choice, if informed of the true facts.
So the electoral battle ahead is a battle of information dissemination.
If Pakatan Rakyat succeeds in conveying the true picture to the majority of the people despite BN’s stranglehold on the mass media in time for the next poll, then the current Umno assembly may prove to be a watershed event. It may go down in history as the advent that triggered the enlightenment of the people to the folly of clinging to a defunct feudal political system.
Such enlightenment will cause a decisive break from the past — the replacement of race-centric politics by governance-centric politics — and sweep Pakatan to power to usher in a new era for the nation.
A few incidents on the sidelines of India’s fight against corruption sparked my interest about the place of corruption in a nation’s path to development.
Industrialist Adi Godrej suggested legitimising ‘small amount’ of speed money for industry, some days ago. In a discussion at the World Economic Forum’s India Economic Summit he suggested that a cap of Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 could be fixed on ‘facilitation fees’ for industry. This isn’t the first time that the issue of legalising bribery has cropped up.
Chief economic adviser Kaushik Basu had earlier proposed letting off the bribe giver, while punishing the bribe taker for a certain class of kickbacks that he termed as ‘harassment bribes’. He cited the example of bribes citizens had to pay for services they were legally entitled to—such as a train ticket, an income tax refund or customs clearance. (Read Basu’s paper http://finmin.nic.in/WorkingPaper/Act_Giving_Bribe_Legal.pdf)
In another unrelated yet recent incident, anti-corruption crusader Kiran Bedi who was accused of claiming inflated travel bills, defended her move on the ground that she was raising money for her NGO.
Even before the nation’s much awaited anti-corruption ombudsman--the Lok Pal takes any definitive form, voices for exemptions have been raised.
As each one clamours for an exception, I thought it worthwhile to question whether some types of corruption can be justified? Won’t legitimising bribery break the very fabric of society? We all agree that corruption is an evil, but is it as the cliché goes, a necessary evil? Is corruption a cost of development?
There’s no dearth of data to prove India’s track record. If current scams rocking the country aren’t disheartening enough, India ranks 87th of 178 countries in the 2010 corruption perception index by the Transparency International. It lags behind fellow developing countries Brazil and China in controlling corruption, according to the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators.
Do countries like India then remain poor because their people and systems are trapped in corruption? I found interesting views in a 2009 podcast on corruption and development between political economist Mushtaq Khan (known for his extensive research on corruption and development) and former World Bank chief Daniel Kaufmann. A certain amount of corruption though undesirable, is inevitable as countries make the transition to a capitalist economy, believes Khan who doesn’t condone corruption in any way, but merely contextualises it. Citing the examples of China, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan or Thailand, he said there was no historical evidence of countries which first reduced corruption and then developed. Governments should thus focus on policies promoting economic growth which in turn reduce poverty, and good governance would follow suit, he proposes. Kaufmann however, sees tackling corruption as a pre-condition for economic growth and poverty reduction.
Closer home, Magsaysay winner and journalist P Sainath clearly calls any idea that suggests legitimising bribery `an obscene one'. “Bribery is systemic. To ask a people burdened with it to accept bribe-giving as legal is to demand they accept both corruption and the existing structures of power and inequity it flows from. This is a perverse idea,” he has written in an editorial.
Inevitable or not, I certainly believe it time to start combating corruption with full force. And not many of us would disagree on that one, I would think. Maybe the answer lies at our doorstep, after all.
A vibrant Parliament is considered the hallmark of a democracy. Its rebuke then certainly provides some food for thought, especially when it comes from someone closely associated with the working of the government. Social activist and member of the National Advisory Council, Aruna Roy on Friday called Indian Parliamentarians “very lazy” and advocated that they be made more “transparent, accountable and hard working” at a public talk in Delhi.
At a time when the government is facing a crisis of credibility, it is worth examining the performance of Parliament itself. Unlike most paid working groups, there are no clearly spelt out KRAs (Key Result Areas) for members of parliament, but data put together from a few sources shows that our Parliamentarians have quite a checkered performance if you analyse parameters such as attendance, legislation or adherence to poll promises.
Let’s take attendance at the workplace, to begin with. Both houses of the parliament haven’t functioned for 100 % of their scheduled hours in any session since the 15th Lok Sabha. The Lok Sabha it emerges worked for 67 % of its scheduled hours and the Rajya Sabha for 62 %, according to data provided the independent research initiative PRS Legislative Research. If we take the latest monsoon session, the lower house worked 104 of its 156 hours and the Rajya Sabha 81 of its 130 hours.
Where legislation in the recently-concluded monsoon session was concerned, 34 bills were listed for introduction and 37 for deliberation and debate. However, only 13 were introduced and 10 passed by both houses, found the PRS.
Another independent analysis looked at a smaller sample of six MPs from Mumbai. The audit by not-for-profit info-bank MumbaiVotes evaluated MP performance for the period between 2009 and 2010 (Read the full Promise Vs. Performance Report Card 2011). MPs from Mumbai recorded an average attendance of 84 % when the Parliament was in session. Utilization of funds under the MPLAD (Member of Parliament Local Area Development) Scheme meant for development work varied among MPs-- ranging from minimum utilization of 35 % funds for one to 82 % for another.
This is not to take away from the contribution of parliamentarians. Both houses for instance, witnessed one of their finest working day with nuanced debates over the Jan Lokpal Bill recently.
If anything, Parliamentarians may do good to restore people’s faith by injecting a dose of accountability. How exactly can this be done remains a complex question. V K Agnihotri, secretary-general Rajya Sabha outlined the need for the Parliament to develop “an inbuilt mechanism to assess its own working” in a paper presented at a conference in Switzerland in 2009 on evaluating parliament. Social activist Anna Hazare has been campaigning for annual audits of MPs performance and the right to recall elected representatives (withdraw their representation if they fail to perform). The MumbaiVotes campaign urges citizens to look at MPs To-do list, pick up the phone and demand accountability from them on their promises. There would be many more such suggestions out there.
Till some mechanism is evolved, we'll simply have to wait for elections to give our score-points.
* Kim Quek reads
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