The government has clarified that the confusion over the sports betting licence in Parliament yesterday was due to nothing more than human error.

donald lim interview 801008 01 Deputy Finance Minister Donald Lim Siang Chai ( left ) said the snafu was the result of the lack of thorough checking by the ministry’s parliamentary officers.

“The officers just did not go through the answers properly,” he said when contacted by Malaysiakini .

The senator explained that there were 40 questions on sports betting directed at the Finance Ministry to be answered in Parliament before the session started on June 7, and that the questions were spread throughout the entire session.

“The officers had prepared the answers earlier. And as you know, there were changes in the events in between,” he said, referring to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s announcement late last month that the government had retracted the approval for legalised sports betting.

Lim also said that he had this morning written to the lawmakers who raised the issue in Parliament, clarifying the matter.

He said the ministry does not need to withdraw the answer in the House since the statement came in the form of a written reply, which was not read out inside the Dewan Rakyat.

“We did not mean to mislead anyone. There is nothing more to the matter and I have replied to all of them,” he said, insisting that there was nothing sinister over the incident, apparently hammering in the last nail in the coffin for sports betting.

In replying to Mahfuz Omar (PAS-Pokok Sena) yesterday, Najib had said the government would offer the sports betting licence to Ascot Sports Sdn Bhd because it had been given prior approval.

“As such, the government feels that if the sports-betting licence is considered, Ascot Sports will have an advantage, based on its experience,” said Najib, raising question marks on whether the issue has really been settled.

Mistakes in the House

This comes in the wake of recent cases of similar misinformation in the House, with the latest one being the debacle on the proposed relocation of Parliament to Putrajaya.

al jazeera 101 east malaysia protest 161107 nazri In the written reply to Sim Tong Him (DAP-Kota Melaka), Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz ( right ) had said the cabinet had decided to move Parliament to the federal administrative capital while retaining the current building as a heritage site.

Mohd Nazri as well as his Cabinet counterpart Works Minister Shaziman Abu Mansor later clarified that it was just a proposal for the Public Works Department to look into and that no decision had been made by the government as yet.

Mohd Nazri, who is also the de facto law minister, issued a rare apology last week, saying that it was due to a misinterpretation by his parliamentary officers.

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