There will be about a score of committees to comprise the Shadow Cabinet, which should be formed in the course of the forthcoming parliamentary meeting which will meet from next Monday to early April.
The Barisan Alternative has also decided to present a second Alternative Budget 2000 proposal before the Finance Minister, Tun Daim Zainuddin, presents his 2000 Budget to the Dewan Rakyat on February 25, 2000.
DAP and the Barisan Alternative demand that Daim should present a new 2000 Budget and not the same one as presented to the previous Parliament on Oct. 29, 1999 but which lapsed as Parliament was dissolved when the budget debate was in mid-session.
Four months have passed since the 2000 Budget was formulated, and many events have transpired since the new presentation of the 2,000 Budget on 25th February 2000 - including the violence-marred talks in Seattle WTO and World European Forum (WEF) in Davos, and the nine-day UNCTAD X in Bangkok beginning on Saturday - and the 2,000 Budget must take these international events as well as local developments into account.
It would be most ridiculous and the height of irresponsibility for Daim to present the same 2,000 Budget, word for word, proposal for proposal, in Parliament on February 25, 2000 as the one he presented on Oct. 29, 1999, as if nothing had transpired in the past four months.
Barisan Alternative presented an alternative 2000 Budget two days before
Daim’s 2000 budget on 29th Oct. 1999. A week before Daim’s second
presentation of the 2000 Budget, the Barisan Alternative will present a
second 2000 Budget proposals.
(9/2/2000)