Experts and academicians who had helped draft the Bill and were tasked to defend it, clashed with local information technology (IT) professionals and ordinary Malaysians.
"We don't want the Bill," cried out one unhappy IT professional as others stood up and raised their hands in support after their repeated questions were met with answers from panel members that they found unclear or were very vague.
Among
the concerns raised were that the Bill and its proposed Board of
Computing Professionals Malaysia appeared to be just like another layer
of bureaucracy and did not specifically address the problems facing the
industry.Several people noted that the board has the potential of becoming a cash-cow for crony companies, rather than be of any real practical use to professionals.
They also questioned the lack of living, breathing code-cracking practising industry professionals on the panel, which is made up largely of academicians and knowledge-focused IT organisations.
Academicians and experts from computer and IT industry-linked organisations took to the floor during an open session in the morning, without the presence of Mosti officials, who only facilitated the event and did not take part in the discussions.
The panel members tried to explain and justify the Bill to the crowd.
They argued that the Bill is necessary to catapult Malaysia's ICT industry on to a higher plane and said it will grow into that role in the future, addressing shortcomings.
They pleaded with IT practitioners to give the Bill a chance and not to kill it prematurely.The process of formulating the final draft is going on and will include all the concerns raised by those present today, they said.
However, they were not forthcoming on how the Bill would directly solve unemployment among local IT graduates or other industry grouses that were raised.
They also could not say why an Act of Parliament is needed to form a body to sign the Seoul Accord, which regulates the quality of the curriculum for IT degrees worldwide.
Opponents to the Bill made clear that other countries have had the same function fulfilled by normal associations that represent the IT community.
Some asked why the Malaysian National Computer Confederation, the de facto representative of the industry, is not being harnessed to carry out the task.
The requirement to sign the Seoul Accord, they argued, is just a pretext used by the panel to justify the Bill.
'RM10 million for a RM1 million solution'
One industry insider, who spoke anonymously to Malaysiakini, said the Bill, which seeks RM10 million for the board, “is an overkill for the roughly RM1 million needed” to gear up for the Seoul Accord accreditation.
"It is a RM10 million solution for a RM1 million problem," the insider said.
DAP
national publicity chief Tony Pua, who was also present, expressed
disappointment with the event and hit out at the lack of coordination,
the fact that no Mosti official of note was present and the inability of
the experts to address key points.Calling it "an impossible attempt to regulate the impossible", Pua said the Bill was inconceivable as it was impractical to regulate the all-pervasive IT industry
"The proposed Bill will fail because the limits and scope of the law cannot be defined, for the industry changes by the minute," said Pua, who worked with the IT industry before moving into politics full time.
Labis MP Chua Tee Yong, who heads MCA's Young Professionals Bureau, also made an appearance to express his party's opposition to the Bill.
Chua submitted a protest memorandum to the panel, calling for the draft Bill to be withdrawn and sent back to the proper stakeholders, the IT practitioners themselves, to be rehashed and reworked.
A senior Mosti officer later told Malaysiakini, that the nature of today's free-form discussion was to facilitate sharing between the panel members, who he said were the original proponents of the Bill on one side, and IT professionals and members of the public, who were going to be directly affected by the Bill, on the other side.
"That is our function, we bring together those who want the Bill (the panel) and those on the other side... that is our job as the government," he said.
The officer further explained that Mosti would be a secretariat for the Bill, which had been proposed under an initiative of the Cabinet Committee on Human Capital Development,'
As such, Mosti is fulfilling the role of bridging the two sides, instead of playing a more active role.
Commenting on the disgruntlement of those present today, the officer said Mosti welcomes all viewpoints and sees no opposition to incorporating these in refining the Bill
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