TMID Editorial: PQs should be answered
Parliament has resumed its business after the summer recess, a break of two and a half months.And it re-started with two important rulings given by the Speaker of the House, Anglu Farrugia, both of which related to parliamentary questions.PQs are a s
Parliament has resumed its business after the summer recess, a break of two and a half months.
And it re-started with two important rulings given by the Speaker of the House, Anglu Farrugia, both of which related to parliamentary questions.
PQs are a system by which MPs can ask ministers, who form part of the executive, for information regarding matters of government. Almost every parliamentary sitting starts with a 30-minute slot during which PQs are asked and answered verbally, while many others are then replied to in writing.
The two rulings which were given by the Speaker last Monday urged for the system to be used properly and for mechanisms to be introduced so as to make it better.
While insisting that he has no power to interfere in the answers that are given, he has suggested that the two sides of the House involved themselves in a "serious" discussion on the procedures used to ensure that PQs are effectively answered.
Earlier in the day, the Nationalist Party (Opposition) had highlighted the fact that in this current legislature, there are more than 800 parliamentary questions that have not been answered. It has also spoken about times when the answer given was not the one that was requested.
In fact, the two rulings the Speaker gave on Monday were sought by PN MPs who felt that the system was being misused. MP Alex Borg said Foreign Minister Ian Borg had not replied to a question on who had been granted a diplomatic passport in the last decade, and MP David Agius had lamented that Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri had not provided the information requested in a PQ Agius had filed for details on the police commissioner's contract.
The Speaker has no say on the content of the answers given. But he has rightly urged for more efficiency in the way questions are answered. He gave, as an example, what happens in Canada, another Commonwealth country, where if a question is not answered within 25 calendar days, then the matter is referred to a Standing Committee chosen by the MP who submitted the question.
In other words, a system should be in place for more expediency in the way questions are answered.
It will certainly be more difficult to "force" ministers to give information they are reluctant to part with.
The government boasts that it is transparent, but the way it treats PQs makes it clear that it does not really practise what it preaches. The media knows this very well too, given that it is sometimes difficult to get ministries to answer our questions, pushing us to resort to Freedom of Information requests which, apart from being a pedantic exercise, many times do not enable us to reach our goal either.
To go back to PQs, it is imperative that ministers provide the information requested in a timely manner, and that the answer given is comprehensive. MPs submitting queries, on the other hand, should be judicious in the type of questions they submit and the answers that they seek.
The discussion on the way the PQ system works should also include the introduction of a Prime Minister's Question-Time, a subject that has been on the card for decades.
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