Touch of Black Humour

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The Malay Mail, Wednesday, June 13, 1990

By Indira Nayar

IN the short time he has been in the public eye, the Member of Parliament for Ampang Jaya Ong Tee Keat has come across as a straight-laced and cautious technocrat.

So it was a relief to find a sense of humour beneath the sober exterior of the newly-elected Dewan Rakyat Deputy Speaker.

“I collect video tapes too,” he confessed alluding to the controversy which rocked Parliament and brought about the downfall of his predecessor, Mr D.P.Vijandran.

Mr Ong smiled cheekily and quickly added: “My favourites are The Sound Of Music and My Fair Lady.”

He is as straight as they come, but it is heartening to know our new Deputy Speaker has a sense of humour – something he will surely need in commanding order in a forum where members are sometimes known for their tantrums and clownishness.

“It was a surprise,” he said about his nomination for the post which he read about in newspapers on his way home from the United States last month.

He immediately confirmed it with MCA leaders, and despite being elected to the post on Monday, he still says: “It’s all been too sudden for me …”

That was about the only hesitant note throughout the hour-long interview with The Malay Mail at his new office on the second floor of Parliament House yesterday.

While the Dewan Rakyat is in sitting, the Deputy Speaker said he will be in at 10 each morning to “do preparations … go through whatever is necessary”.

Mr Ong, 33, is his usual earnest self when he speaks of his work.

The son of a fishmonger, he was an active grassroots MCA member while at varsity. Six years after graduating as a mechanical engineer, and while enjoying a lucrative post at an engineering firm, he quit to become political secretary to Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Lee Kim Sai. This was in 1986.

Mr Ong was the Barisan Nasional candidate in the Ampang Jaya by-election last January in which he beat veteran politician Datuk Harun Idris by over 4,000 votes.

He made it clear he need not have resigned his post as political secretary to be Deputy Speaker but did so on principle.

“Being political secretary makes me part of the executive, but as Deputy Dewan Rakyat Speaker I am now part of the legislative.

“I resigned because I felt there might be a conflict of interest if I held on to both posts,” he said in his simple, forthright manner.

As Deputy Speaker, Mr Ong draws only an allowance and not the salary which he commanded as political secretary. This has fired speculation in the vernacular Press that he will lose out on a lot of money.

Mr Ong is angered by this sort of speculation as it does not parallel his own way of thinking.

“If people keep counting the ringgit and the sen, their vision will be blurred by the $ sign,” he said.

It may also afford him more time to dabble in his hobby – writing.

Mr Ong is married to primary schoolteacher Chooi Yoke Chun, and the couple has three daughters, aged five, three and one. 

ORIGINAL POSTING http://ongteekeat.net