Have special sitting soon to table anti-hopping bill, PH tells PM
The opposition also wants issues of inflation and rising cost of living to be debated.
PETALING JAYA: Pakatan Harapan (PH) today urged Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob to call for a special sitting of the Dewan Rakyat as soon as possible to table the long-awaited anti-hopping bill.
In a statement, the coalition’s presidential council said that Ismail should not wait any longer as he had expressed his commitment to table the bill several times before.
Last month, Ismail said the bill would be tabled in the July session.
PH made the call for the tabling of the bill to be expedited following a statement by law minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar that the anti-hopping law would not apply to MPs who were sacked by their parties.
Wan Junaidi, who heads a special select committee on the anti-hopping bill, said MPs sacked by their parties would be able to retain the seats they had won in the elections.
However, he said the anti-hopping law would come into effect if MPs were to quit the party they had contested under to join another party or become an independent.
PH’s call also came in the wake of Ampang MP Zuraida Kamaruddin quitting Bersatu to join newly-formed Parti Bangsa Malaysia.
The coalition also wants issues on inflation, cost of living and the recent exposé by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on alleged corrupt practices in medical procurement during the Covid-19 pandemic to be debated in the special sitting.
On May 23, MACC chief commissioner Azam Baki revealed that the agency had opened investigations into bribery in the procurement of medical services, fraud related to the supply of medical protective equipment, and abuse of power in distributing aid and stimulus packages during the pandemic.
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“The presidential council calls on the prime minister to act swiftly in making sure that all these matters can be debated (during the special sitting),” it said.