DECEMBER was a month of hope for Malaysians. It was then that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim announced his newly minted cabinet, promising to take Malaysia to a good place. A cabinet that gets cracking from the get-go?
Yes, that was Anwar's December promise. Most ministers literally did get cracking. Disappointingly for Anwar and the country, a minister or two didn't. It was in full display in Parliament on Monday during the question-and-answer session.
For reasons not made known, Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek was not there to take the question posed by lawmaker Datuk Ahmad Marzuk Shaary, but her deputy, Lim Hui Ying, was there.
Ahmad Marzuk's query was a simple one: what is the government's allocation for the Supplementary Food Programme for schools and what is the monitoring mechanism being adopted to ensure schoolchildren get nutritious food?
No rocket science involved here. Lim's response? She did not prepare any answer and would provide written ones. This is most disappointing coming from a deputy education minister. Lim might as well have not been there. What is bizarre is that the question was forwarded to the Education Ministry days earlier ("long ago", according to one lawmaker) as is the practice with all parliamentary queries.
Ahmad Marzuk is calling on Fadhlina and Lim to resign. We leave that to the prime minister. Harsh? Yes, but we are talking about a ministry that has a critical role in taking Malaysia to a good place.
Malaysians are looking to the ministers to lead the reform of the education system, but what confidence can we have in them when they either don't care or aren't able to answer parliamentary queries?
Let's not forget that the Education Ministry gets a big slice of the government's budget, year in and year out. Malaysians want the ministers to either work for it or let others who can to take their place.
Fadhlina may have had a good reason for being absent from the question-and-answer session, but she has no excuse for not ensuring that her deputy was armed with the answers.
We won't be wrong to say that this is tantamount to shirking a ministerial responsibility. Lim's case is worse. Imagine the takeaway for our schoolchildren who get to read about or witness her performance at the question-and-answer session.
Copy that, they will say and respond thus: "Sir, I didn't prepare the answer. I will write one later." The Education Ministry may have just licensed our schoolchildren to be lazy.
Members of parliament mustn't forget that they are on candid cameras. Every action and inaction are relayed to the nation. And even when the cameras are off, MPs' deeds and misdeeds are visible from the gallery.
What is visible from there isn't pretty and certainly not good enough to write home about. Instead of being attentive to the proceedings in the august house, some MPs are busy with "selfies" and "wefies" just to regularly update their social media sites.
Others are happy playing truant. Yet these very same lawmakers cry themselves hoarse asking for a hike in their allocations and allowances. For being on honeymoon? Show us some sweat and tears, MPs.
We applaud Deputy Speaker Datuk Ramli Nor for reprimanding Lim. Lim's way is not the way for Malaysia to go to a good place.