Make the Senate Useful

In countries like US and Japan , the have different houses of democracy . Their Upper and Lower house , their Minority and Majority leaders as well as their Senate and Congress are full functioning and efficient .

Today , we need to ask ourselves . What is the Senate there for ? Do they serve the public ? Are they useful in anyway ? Of course we all know Senators also debate on motion .... bla bla bla .

But , are they effective ? No . Because whatever the Senators say or decide , everything is useless ! Dewan Rakyat don't care what outcomes are from the Senate meetings .

And thus , what is the Senate there for ?? As far as I can see , it is useful only to the PM of Malaysia . This is because whenever he wants to fill a ministerial post and the chosen one is not a MP , the PM can then elect him as a Senator and .... taaadaaaa ... Minister of XYZ Dept.

We need to make the Senate useful . Turn it into a Congress ala US style . Make it functional in check and balance , listening to the public , and serve the people . Check and balance should be on the top list of the portfolios of Senators . Amend the laws and make Senators more powerful . We do not need to wait a week or a month to have an Independent Panel set up whenever a scandal occurs and there exists a public outcry .

Let the Senators have the power to summon anyone to appear in Dewan Negara and answer on record to the Senate on issues involving the accused . Let it run like a mini High Court . Also , we should allow the Senators to form units to monitor activities of ministries , organizations and individuals . Any "funny and weird" activities moving around , issue a subpoena !

And that is one way on how we could make things better back home .

Congratulations to Datuk Shaziman . Well done in making the 999 the sole and core emergency number instead of us having so many . I'm glad to hear that even you yourself felt confused at times about the numbers 991 , 994 etc . That is how the public feels as well . You can't expect a Ah Pek or a Pakcik at the age of 80 seeing a fire happening and thinking what is the Fire Dept Emergency Number , right ?

Well done to you and your Ministry for fixing this .