Skipping parliamentary meetings without valid and proper reason by members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, has of late become so frequent that such dereliction of duty is threatening to render the legislature dysfunctional.
For the past 11 months, six House meetings and four joint Senate-House meetings were abruptly called off for the simple reason that the number of MPs and senators present at those meetings was not enough to make a quorum. Of all the incidents, the most shameful took place last Friday, when about 60 opposition Puea Thai MPs left for Phnom Penh to meet fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was in the Cambodian capital to give a lecture to that country's senior government officials and top businessmen as part of his new job as economic adviser to the Cambodian government. It was reported that some of the Puea Thai MPs submitted their leave forms while the rest did not and simply left.
Although the blame for the cancellation of last Friday's meeting was as much attributable to the departure for Cambodia of a large group of Puea Thai MPs as was the absence of scores of government MPs, the conduct of the opposition lawmakers in abandoning their job just to meet their beloved leader, was most unbecoming and irresponsible.
Lacking a quorum to hold parliamentary meetings due to the high incidence of absenteeism among senators and MPs is only part of the disturbing story about the despicable conduct of some of our legislators, who ironically have the audacity to address themselves as "honourable" members of parliament. This also testifies to the failure or complete incompetence of the whips, especially of the government camp, to rein in their MPs to ensure there is always a quorum to enable a meeting to proceed uninterrupted.
But even among those who are present at the meetings, the performance of many has at best been below par. Quite often MPs are seen dozing off or ogling at girlie magazines while their colleagues are busy debating an issue. There are also others who seem to enjoy heckling to interrupt their political opponents and draw silly laughter from colleagues.
Granted there are indeed responsible and efficient lawmakers in both the government and opposition camps, but the bad apples among them appear to have spoiled the whole basket and given the reputation of the legislature a bad name. With the unpleasant behaviour of so many lawmakers, the recent decision by the government to increase the pay and fringe benefits for both senators and MPs defies common sense and constitutes an insult to the taxpayers. For example, the monthly pay of a senator or an MP will be adjusted by 9.3% from 62,000 baht to 67,790 baht plus an additional monthly pay of 42,330 baht.
There is no justification whatsoever for the government to adjust the pay for both senators and MPs. Economically, the 9% adjustment is not in proportion with the inflation rate, which is likely to remain at 1.4% throughout the year as predicted by the Bank of Thailand. Performance-wise, the two houses have failed to impress, the House in particular, in the wake of the controversial journey to Cambodia by the group of Puea Thai MPs at the expense of the cancellation of a House meeting. Unless the senators and particularly the MPs show more responsibility and improve their performance, they do not deserve even a minimal pay rise. Instead, those who fail to perform and those who act irresponsibly deserve to have their pay slashed.
Bangkok Post
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