Thursday, April 24, 2008

Dewan Rakyat question hour live telecast may stretch to 90 minutes - NST

KUALA LUMPUR, Thurs: April 24, 2008 By V. Vasudevan

The 30-minute live telecast of the Question Hour in the Dewan Rakyat will be extended to the full 90 minutes if there is demand, Information Minister Datuk Shabeery Cheek said today.

“We are prepared for this and we have put in place the infrastructure,” he said yesterday after visiting Parliament to inspect the facilities for the live telecast.

Shabeery said the government was prepared to go live on the entire Question Hour live, but wanted to ensure that there was demand for it.

“We don’t want it to distract people from work,” he said.

Shabeery conceded that some MPs might use the opportunity to attack the government.

“There may be some who play to the gallery. We have to take the risk. When you talk about openness, it is like opening the floodgates, some rubbish is bound to come through,” he said.

Asked if there were plans for the telecast to be sponsored by the private sector, Shabeery said this was up to RTM.

“I am leaving it to them. They have their way to get advertisements. It is up to them,” he said.

Shabeery said RTM had placed three cameras in the House.

“The visual will be better. Earlier, we had depended on the in-house close circuit television,” he said.

He said the additional equipment will cost about RM1 million.

Shabeery, however, declined to give the total cost of the live telecast.

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