Ex-MB: Speaker Teng in a tit-for-tat move
(The Star) SHAH ALAM: Former Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Khir Toyo has described his one-year suspension from the state assembly without privileges as an act of revenge.
He claimed that Speaker Teng Chang Khim, who chaired the assembly’s Rights and Privileges Committee which recommended the suspension, was behind the punishment.
“He is taking revenge over his own suspension years ago,” Dr Mohd Khir told a press conference yesterday.
Teng was suspended 30 months in 2005 for throwing the Standing Orders into the waste paper basket during a state assembly seating.
Dr Mohd Khir said he had told Teng then that he would not be suspended if he apologised. “I gave him three chances to apologise but he chose suspension,” he said.
The Rights and Privileges Committee recommended that Dr Mohd Khir be suspended for a year for not attending an inquiry conducted by the state’s Select Committee on Competence, Accountability and Transparency (Selcat) in March on the disbursement of state agency funds to Balkis – the Wives of Selangor Assemblymen and MPs Welfare and Charity Organisation.
He was also suspended six months each on three counts of criticising Selcat in the media and in his blog.
Dr Mohd Khir said it was unfair to make him face an inquiry chaired by his political nemesis.
He said it was also unfair for the Rights and Privileges Committee to recommend the suspension of Barisan Nasional assemblymen Datuk Warno Dogol (Sabak Bernam), Datuk Mohd Idris Abu Bakar (Hulu Bernam), Mohd Isa Abu Kassim (Batang Kali) and Datuk Marsum Paing (Dengkil).
They were found guilty of attacking Selcat in the media.
“The Selangor Government professes to champion freedom of expression but yet stifles dissent. The four had merely said that the inquiry should have been held behind closed doors,” he said.
