On Wednesday (5 July), Leader of the House Indranee Rajah called out a video posted by the Progress Singapore Party (PSP).
She urged PSP to remove the video which apparently misrepresented the discussions held in Parliament over the Ridout Road saga.
About 24 hours after Ms Indranee made the request, PSP apologised on Facebook for the two videos they had posted.
The party acknowledged that the videos had cast a “misleading impression” about the parliamentary proceedings on the Ridout Road issue.
PSP has since removed the original video that Ms Indranee took issue with, as well as a subsequent edited version, from their Facebook page.
On Thursday (6 July) night, PSP issued an apology on Facebook for the two videos in question.
Source: Progress Singapore Party on Facebook
In the post, they admitted that the videos “created a misleading impression” of the parliamentary proceedings on Monday (3 July).
The two videos had also given the impression that “no debate was allowed”.
Moreover, the clips apparently implied that PSP Secretary-General Leong Mun Wai did not get any time to ask questions.
However, PSP admitted that Mr Leong was able to ask all “the questions he wanted to ask”, proving that he had enough latitude.
The party also acknowledged that their MPs could have further debated the matter by filing a motion. Unfortunately, they failed to do so.
Apart from the apology, PSP has removed both videos in question from their Facebook page.
PSP’s Facebook apology came roughly 24 hours after Ms Indranee called out the initial video on 5 July.
In particular, she pointed out that the video gave the impression that the Deputy Speaker did not allow for a debate. Therefore, it appeared as though concerns regarding Ridout Road could not be fully aired.
Source: MCI Singapore on YouTube
Ms Indranee stressed that the video did not accurately portray the fact that MPs could procedurally ask questions or clarify ministerial statements.
Following this first incident, PSP took down the original video. But they later replaced it with an edited clip on Thursday (6 July).
Sadly for them, Ms Indranee was still unhappy with the new clip.
She reportedly took issue with the text overlay claiming that Deputy Speaker Christopher de Souza reminded Mr Leong not to start a debate during a ministerial statement. This was allegedly after the latter urged the former not to end the debate early.
Ms Indranee then noted that not all members of the public might know the differences between debates for motions filed in Parliament and clarifications for ministerial statements.
As such, she said that “suggesting that a debate was not allowed” without providing the proper context might give a false impression that members cannot ventilate issues.
It might have also implied that the Deputy Speaker “shut down” questions by Mr Leong and other members on the issue.
Ms Indranee apparently gave Mr Leong till 10pm on Thursday (6 July) to take down the revised post and issue an apology.
Should he fail to do so, she would refer the matter to the Committee of Privileges.
PSP posted their apology three minutes before the deadline.
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Featured image adapted from MCI Singapore on YouTube.
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