It was even worse, added Lim, that Minister of Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government, Abdul Rahman Dahlan — after lying on Taman Manggis — also claimed that he wanted to be ejected from Parliament to avoid answering him. “I cut short my official trip to China to come back and face him.”
Clearly, said Lim who is also DAP Secretary-General, Rahman Dahlan was wrong. “His stubborn refusal to admit his mistake shows that he’s not an honourable parliamentarian, only a rabble-rouser.”
Rahman Dahlan should be man enough to eat humble pie by admitting his mistake and do the right thing by retracting the word “lie” willingly on Monday, added Lim. “If he’s an honourable parliamentarian, he should also apologise for causing me to be ejected from Parliament for a day.”
“Rasah MP Teo Kok Seong was also ejected from Parliament with me.”
The Bagan MP was thanking Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia for upholding parliamentary practice and customs. “I feel vindicated by the ruling made by Pandikar Amin Mulia on Friday that the word ‘bohong’ (lie) in the House was unparliamentary.”
Lim quoted Pandikar as saying, “if I had been in the House on Thursday, I would have instructed the Honourable Minister to retract the word ‘lie’ which he had uttered”.
Lim stressed that he was right when he fought to uphold the sanctity of the Standing Orders. “The word ‘lie’ was unparliamentary and should be withdrawn by Rahman Dahlan.”
“He had unreasonably refused to do so, which led to 90 minutes of mayhem in Parliament, and wasted time, and me being ejected from the house for doing the right thing. Rahman Dahlan escaped unpunished despite wrongdoing.”
Rahman Dahlan, reminded Lim, had said in Parliament on March 16 that he had lied in relation to his speech outside Parliament that the maximum price for affordable housing was fixed by the Federal Government. “We are upset the Penang Government was being criticised by Barisan Nasional (BN) for the maximum price of affordable housing at RM400,000.”
“We are only following Federal Government guidelines. We don’t fix the price. In other words, Rahman Dahlan was also saying that the Prime Minister lied.”
The Prime Minister announced the new ceiling of RM400,000 in the 2012, 2013 and 2014 Budgets.