SHAH ALAM, 10 Apr: The BN Government’s refusal to hold a briefing for Pakatan Rakyat (PR) Members of Parliament and refusing to form the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) for the MH370 crisis is disappointing.
The Member of Parliament for Gelang Patah, Lim Kit Siang, said that the Umno-BN Government’s refusal clearly proves that the crisis in the past month was not addressed seriously, causing the international community to have adverse perceptions about the country.
He said that the move to avoid the establishment of the PSC is seen as a deliberate avoidance and evasion of parliamentary responsibility and accountability at the Parliamentary level.
“Despite such repeated public assurances by Hishammuddin, and the undertaking both in and out of Parliament by Shahidan to arrange for a briefing by Hishammuddin to PR MPs if there is an official request, Hishammuddin and Shahidan have finally reneged on their undertaking for Hishammuddin to give a briefing to PR MPs.
“I have been quite sceptical that Hishammuddin would be prepared to give a briefing to PR MPs on the MH370 disaster and I am not really surprised that there has been reneging of this undertaking,” said the DAP Parliamentary Chief.
Previously, at the early stages of the disappearance of MH370, a briefing in Parliament was only given the Barisan Nasional (BN) MPs, without involving PR MPs.
Until now, Putrajaya has not stated clearly their stance on the request to establish the PSC which was brought up by the Seremban MP, Anthony Loke, on 20 March.
Instead, Hishammuddin, as the acting Minister of Transport, announced the establishment of an investigation team and three special committees to probe the issue of the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) aircraft.
In relation to that, Anthony described the Federal Government’s actions of clearly showing that they are not interested in committing to establish the PSC.
“Prior to this, they gave the reason that we could not attend the briefing because we were not given a letter, but even when they gave the letter, we were still not briefed.
“Now they have given the excuse that we have to wait for the ministerial committee investigation to finish, and then asked us to understand the problem that has occurred. But the question is, why do they not want to cooperate,” he said.
Meanwhile, 10 military aircraft, 4 civilian aircraft and 13 ships have joined in the search for the Malaysian MH370 aircraft in the Indian Ocean today, with a search area covering 57,923 square kilometres.
The Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) in a statement said the search is centred around the area 2,280 kilometres northwest of Perth.
Also on-going is the search on the seabed with the ADV Ocean Shield ship is placed in the north, while the China Haixun 01 ship and the British ship, the HMS Echo, are in the south of the search area.
