Whips to draw up proposals on difference between 'absent' and 'excused' MPs

House Business Committee has tasked Government and Opposition whips to draw up proposals to distinguish when MPs are 'absent' or 'excused'.

25 November 2010, 12:00am
by Nestor Laiviera

1 min read

The respective whips were tasked with making the recommendations after the committee, following a request by Speaker Michael Frendo, discussed a report that recently appeared in a local paper about low attendance of MPs during sittings.

While not justifying the reasons behind members not attending, Deputy Prime Minister Tonio Borg, maintained the report was “unfair” because if any Parliamentary member is abroad on government work, he or she is not declared ‘excused’ instead of ‘absent’.

Borg went on to say that members are also sometimes declared absent when they would have been attending a Permanent Committee session. He recommended a change in Parliament’s Permanent Orders so that this does not keep happening.

Government whip David Agius pointed out that the same could be said of instances when parliamentary members would be forced to miss parliamentary sessions due to illness.

During the session, PL parliamentary member Helena Dalli also said that members do not need to be in Parliament at all times when it meets. She said that there needs to be distinctions in the importance of discussions - as there are instances when it would be more important that members are at work in their own constituencies

More from Nestor Laiviera

Alfred Galea •

Lee, are you forgetting the PM?? I said 26 plus the PM which makes 27 clowns. Sort of like the US.....they have 100 senators.

Joe Tanti •

@Joe South: The number of seats in parliament cannot be 26 as this is an even number and so that when the votes are cast and a majority and minority is established they can be divided by which only an odd number it can be done,the election in the 13 districts are elections in their own right ,so they too must be represented by an odd number hence 13 x 3 = 39 which I think is the best solution of getting rid of these excessive spending by eliminating at least 26 seats in parliament thus smaller house of parliament,less perks,more managable,less pensions and more parking spaces in Valletta.But it seems that downsizing is for the man in the street and not for the men (and women ) in the House.

Alfred Galea •

Whether they're present, absent or excused they're still 69 incompetent clowns anyway....the biggest being the speaker. There should only be 26 MPs, two from each district, with the voters voting for the PM plus two MPs.

Joe Tanti •

In these times of downsizing how about downsizing the number of elected members of parliament to 39, that means that every district elects just 3 members. This means of not having a lot of members absenting themselves from parlamentary sittings,less money to run this parliament,a lot less smaller house of parlament, which could be housed in a smaller building in Valletta,a lot less MPs pensions etc.. A lot of the present number of MPs have not uttered more than 15 minutes of speech in the whole legisliture,so what is their need? If the ratio of voters to MPs elected in Malta would be taken into account in England then the English House of Commons would run into thousands of MPs. Our parliament is top-heavy and a money guzzling enterprise, but I dont think that any MP would forward such amendment to their number .Ministers are forever calling for downsizing Air Malta,and other entities,how about give an example by downsizing their numbers?......................Any remarks?, please expand this suggestion.

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A member of Parliament is called an MP and not a PM.