He said that this was due to the government structure in Kuala Lumpur where there was no Parliament or council that provided an avenue to intervene with the final decision.

“Even the mayor (Amin Nordin Abdul Aziz) is not in a position to finalise the budget. He is accountable only to his boss (Federal Territories Minister Tengku Adnan Mansor) who has the final say,” he said.

Tian Chua, however, commended the mayor for taking the initiative to show what DBKL had planned as well as asking the Kuala Lumpur MPs for their feedback, especially when he was under no obligation to do so.

In a dialogue on the DBKL’s Budget 2017 held at the DBKL training institute yesterday, Kuala Lumpur MPs from Pakatan Harapan voiced dissatisfaction at the lack of details presented in the budget draft.

Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah said it was incumbent upon DBKL to showcase the percentage of accepted suggestions versus rejected ones.

Tian Chua, who is also PKR vice-president, however, said that this was not the case.

“We are in no position to see the details and even if we do and then disagree with the details, we can’t do anything about it.

“So we end up giving all this feedback and then when they finalise the budget we cannot ask why they didn’t amend it based on our suggestions.”

He said that despite the difficulties in Parliament, the budget presentation at the Dewan Rakyat – unlike DBKL’s budget –required that the treasury submit the full details about the budget to the MPs before it could be formally passed.

He said this inability to intervene was one of the reasons reforming the structure of governance in Kuala Lumpur was so important.