No such thing as RM5,000 parking allowance
Saturday, 28 Dec 2019
A misunderstanding: Kok says ministers can claim for parking with receipts under miscellaneous allowances, which is no different than with most other public officials.
KUALA LUMPUR: Lately, questions on the amount of emoluments and allowances received by Cabinet ministers and members of the administration are hotly debated on social media.There were some claiming that the ministers received certain allowances, including for parking, said to be more than RM5,000, which drew severe criticism from the public who described the amount as excessive.
The amount of emoluments and allowances received by a Cabinet minister or member of the administration could not be publicly announced because it was subject to the Official Secrets Act 1972.
Several ministers and deputy ministers contacted via WhatsApp generally confirmed that the parking allowance was non-existent.
Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah in his official Twitter account said: “As far as I know, I don’t have any parking allowance.
In a separate tweet, he said the alleged parking allowance that was tweeted since Wednesday was untrue.
The issue on the parking allowance first cropped up when a tweet questioned the ministerial parking allowance of RM5,000.
A day later, an infographic claimed to list the amount of allowances supposedly received by Cabinet ministers, such as entertainment allowance of RM10,500, housing allowance of RM10,800, people’s representative allowance of RM10,650 and parking allowance of RM5,700.
Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok said: “The statement that was viralled recently on ministers being given an allocation of RM5,000 for parking fees was not true.
“Ministers can claim for parking with receipts under miscellaneous allowances, which is no different than with most other public officials.
“It must be remembered that when ministers from Pakatan Harapan took over duties from the previous ministers, we carried out our duties with a 10% pay cut compared to the ministers under the previous administration. It was first enforced in June 2018 until now.” — Benama
