Dewan Rakyat rejects Opposition's motion to review KPDNKK's budget

KUALA LUMPUR: The Dewan Rakyat has rejected the opposition's motion to review the results of a bloc vote on the Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry's (KPDNKK) portion of Budget 2018 that was narrowly passed last week.
Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia (pix) said G. Manivannan (PKR-Kapar), who had called for the bloc vote, had failed to sign off for DAP MP for Stampin Julian Tan, causing the latter's vote to be discounted.
"Gobind Singh Deo (DAP-Puchong) brought a motion about the bloc vote. I have examined the motion, considered the amount of opposition votes as only 51 because Manivannan as the leader of the bloc failed to include Tan.
"He signed and verified that this is his signature so I decided that this does not affect the bloc voting,
"I would like to inform that the Speaker has discretion to decide whether to allow for bloc voting to avoid frivolous requests. This is the authority of the speaker," Pandikar said in the Dewan Rakyat on Monday.
Manivannan later admitted that there was a mistake in tabulating votes from the Opposition bloc.
"I do admit that there was a mistake in my calculation, and I accept this because there was an error.
"I would also suggest that we have a new system in calculating votes to ensure that this problem does not arise again," Manivanan said.
Last week, the opposition had attempted to thwart the supply bill by bloc vote follwing the absence of Barisan Nasional (BN) MPs after KPDNKK minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainuddin had finished his debate.
Barisan Nasional (BN) won by a razor-thin margin of one vote (52 to 51).
Two PAS lawmakers abstained from voting.