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Parliament should send a wheelchair to Rafidah so that she could personally address the AP scandal and national automotive policy controversy during the three-day Ministerial reply of the 2006 Budget debate beginning on 17th October ________________________________ This was why I had in Parliament wished the Minister for International Trade and Industry Datuk Paduka Rafidah Aziz a successful kneecap operation and speedy recovery when she was hospitalized on Wednesday, and had intended to refrain from making any criticism of her mishandling of the AP scandal and the controversy over the national automotive policy during her hospitalisation. But she seems to have taken the “offensive” on hospitalization when in the previous four months of the swirling AP scandal and Proton controversy, she was on the defensive and “on the run” from the media, UMNO Supreme Council, Cabinet and Parliament. On Thursday, she gave the notorious interview with New Straits Times that “Lim Kit Siang can go jump into the lake” and the utterly meaningless statement: “If the Prime Minister asks me to resign, I will certainly resign.” Yesterday (Saturday), words went out that although Rafidah had just undergone a kneecap replacement surgery, she was carrying on with her Ministerial duties during her recuperation from her ward at the Pantai Medical Centre. This was reported by Nanyang Siang Pau night edition last night, which prompted an immediate response from me when speaking at the DAP Bukit Beruang Branch’s “Restore the Third Vote” Dinner. This morning, Mingguan Malaysia carried a full-page interview with Rafidah from hospital bed with her two legs fully wrapped in plaster, giving more instances of her “regal arrogance”, completely cut off from the ordinary people on the ground. Her most outrageous comment, that all “except two or three people” – “kecuali dua tiga orang” – in Parliament and country accepted her explanations about the AP scandal and Proton controversy, reminiscent of the tale of “the Emperor with no clothes”. In the same regal “Plaster of Paris” (which may become new fashion), Rafidah received the visiting Japanese Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry Shoichi Nakagawa to discuss WTO and trade matters. As Rafidah can carry out her Ministerial duties from her hospital ward immediately after her kneecap replacement surgery, there can be no reason why she cannot be present in Parliament to face the phalanx of MPs who want full accountability for her mishandling of the AP scandal and the national automotive policy controversy, particularly as she has reiterated that the AP and national automotive policy have always remained under her Ministerial jurisdiction and had never been transferred to the Prime Minister as some, like the Barisan Backbenchers Club Chairman Datuk Shahrir Samad, had thought.. Parliament should send a wheelchair to Rafidah so that she could personally address the AP scandal and national automotive policy controversy during the three-day Ministerial reply of the 2006 Budget debate beginning on 17th October
* Lim Kit Siang, |