By Leong Hze Hian
According to a tabulation by Chinese papers Lian He Zao Bao, Jurong GRC PAP MP Rahayu Mahzam is the dumbest MP of 2017, making only 8 speeches in a year. Defending her “record”, the part-time MP on a S$192,000/year salary who works full-time as a lawyer told reporters that she does not see the need to repeat questions filed by others:
“Most of my questions are related to the law profession, and I would normally ensure that my questions have not been raised by others.”
The Chinese papers did not give a ranking of who spoke the least as the data is highly embarrassing to the ruling party government.
The list of most vocal MPs are as follow:
1) WP NCMP Leon Perera (151 times)
2) PAP MP Louis Ng (103 times)
3) WP NCMP Dennis Tan (94 times)
4) WP NCMP Daniel Goh (83 times)
The most vocal MP in Parliament is NCMP Leon Perera from the Workers’ Party, who made 151 speeches and questions in a year – or an average of about 3 speeches a week. When interviewed by the media, MP Leon Perera said that there is a lot of questions to ask the government.”
Former Minister never speak?
In this connection, I searched the Parliamentary records for “Mah Bow Tan” for the Parliamentary sittings of the 12th Parliament (from the general election of 2011 until 5 February 2013), and could not find anything that was said by him.
So, does this mean that he did not say anything in Parliament in the one and a half years or so?
NCMP spoke 82 times?
For the purpose of comparision, I searched “Lina Chiam” which returned 82 results.
Former Minister spoke once only?
I searched “Wong Kan Seng” and found only one result.
Are there any other MPs who didn’t say, or hardly said anything too, in the Parliamentary history of Singapore ?