I NEED to know who the Malaysian Parliament had engaged to install the computing facilities on the desk of each Member of Parliament at the start of this Budget Session.

The intention was noble but execution was third class, to say the least.

First, the kudos.

Bearing in mind that a vast majority of the 222-seat Lower House (Dewan Rakyat) are computer illiterates, and most of them are from the 140-seat Government’s bench, the computerisation effort is a step towards turning the e-idiots into a bunch of wannabes who will now look savvy in front of roving TV cameras.

At the very least, the first page that pops up on the screen, pre-booted by Parliament attendants, is to enable them to sign in their daily attendance. It’s a no-brainer as the MPs will be greeted with their respective mugshots, and a click-on-the-mouse is what it takes to secure their daily subsistence allowance as a federal legislator.

In terms of hardware being fixed assets of the Parliament, the 10-inch LCD screen is screwed to the MP’s table, effectively preventing theft. Affixed is a wired keyboard and a wired mouse.

However, to the net-savvy, and most if not all of the 82-seat MPs from the Opposition Bench truly are, of which I am one, the computing specs are entry level kits fit for kindergarten.

With all intents and purposes, the wired Internet connectivity is passable with 4Mbps on SDSL. But no doubt, the “best effort” corporate mentality of the ISPs will ensure that access speed to sites located beyond Malaysia’s border router snarls up a little.

There’s a 100Gb harddisk that is linked to no USB ports for external drive or flash memory or network printer. Neither is it equipped with a DVD-ROM drive though MPs are occasionally given documentary materials on CDs.

However, the unforgivable sin is an outmoded ATOM-chipset netbook-speed central processor that hangs the machines once over four Windows Explorer tabs are launched on the browser. It’s like pouring aircraft fuel into the tank that refuses to fire on all four cylinders.

Net net, you spent big money that only placed big, fat 222 white elephants in the hall.

Which IT consultants drew the specs for this mismatch? The way Malaysia goes, the MPs may have to wait out till the 2009 Auditor-General’s Report not due before next October.

So what we do? I have to shaft away the keyboard and the whole shebang that now occupy half of my workbench, and revert to my trusty HP Pavillion notebook, or sometimes the Vaio P25G, a netbook no doubt that drives faster than the Parliament’s new toys for the MPs.

Incidentally, the Prime Minister/Finance Minister punctuated his maiden Budget Speech by saying that Malaysia has to do catch-up in broadband adoption. “The current broadband penetration rate in Malaysian households is 26%, against 88% in Singapore and 95% in South Korea,” he said.

And, the last time the Speaker of the House remarked on my blog entry about him, he admitted that he was reading from a copy printed by the Parliament secretary.

I ain’t finished yet. I still need to find out who the Malaysian Parliament had engaged to install these flabby computers on each of our MP’s desk. Computer speaking, they made the strong weak in order to make the weak strong. No good.