KUALA LUMPUR – The three lawmakers who turned up at the Dewan Rakyat yesterday in full personal protective equipment (PPE) had obtained approval from Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
The trio has been accused of breaking their home surveillance orders to attend yesterday’s voting session.
“For your information, the Tenggara, Tapah, and Batu MPs had written application letters to the health DG to attend the Parliament sittings.
“In a letter dated on December 14, the health DG had allowed their applications to take time off from their 10-day home surveillance orders to attend the voting session under several conditions,” Dewan Rakyat Speaker Datuk Azhar Azizan Harun said today.
He was responding to a question by opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim (PH-Port Dickson) on the sudden attendance of the three MPs yesterday – Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba (BN-Tenggara), Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan (BN-Tapah) and P. Prabakaran (PH-Batu) in PPE.
Azhar also apologised to the House for not answering Anwar’s question yesterday, following a walkout by a number of opposition MPs who expressed unhappiness that the trio were in the House, raising the risk of infection.
Among the conditions for approving their attendance, Azhar said, included having the trio escorted in an ambulance and wearing PPE while in Parliament.
“They were required to put on new sets of PPE and be seated at the public gallery where their votes would be taken. Enumerators and witnesses had to wear visors.
“After the voting, they were made to leave the gallery and placed in a disinfected room so that their contact with others was limited,” said Azhar.
The decision for the three MPs to be seated at the gallery, he said, was made with those provisions in place.
He added that Adham had finished his quarantine yesterday and may resume his sitting in the Dewan Rakyat today.
Meanwhile, Prabakaran and Saravanan will both complete their home surveillance orders today and Thursday respectively.
Noor Hisham on Sunday announced that the mandatory Covid-19 quarantine period has been reduced to 10 days from 14, beginning on Monday. – The Vibes, December 15, 2020
