YAN: The unity government needs to establish certain conditions in granting allocations to opposition members of parliament (MPs).
Umno Supreme Council member Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan said he was among the elected representatives subjected to specific conditions on allocations by previous administrations.
In this regard, he believed that the current crop of opposition MPs should similarly be subjected to such conditions.
"When I was in the opposition, I only received RM100,000 and couldn't even use it for my service centre.
"So if (the unity government) wants to give, I think RM100,000 is sufficient and it cannot be used for service centres as imposed on us back then," he told reporters here today.
Ahmad said previous opposition MPs had received their allocations towards the end of the term before the 15th General Election (GE15) due to instability in the previous government.
He said that the current situation was significantly different as the unity government is commanding strong parliamentary support of 153 seats, plus an additional six opposition MPs supporting the prime minister.
"I believe there is another purpose (for the allocations then), which was to stabilise a government that was then unstable.That's why they gave to the opposition and everyone knew it. It was an open secret.
"But now, the government has 153 seats, and it has never commanded such strength since 2004. This state of support is very solid," he added.
On Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof reportedly clarified that federal allocations were not only specifically allocated to the respective elected representatives.
He said the allocations were also for infrastructure and social development carried out by government agencies in the respective areas.