Kuala Lampur, Oct. 30 -- Twenty days ago I wrote that the minister is accountable to Parliament.

It is a convention of a Westminster-style government. The convention holds ministers responsible and accountable for their departments' actions and performance.

It is the ministers who must account for the performance and decisions of their departments.

Civil servants, on the other hand, are accountable to ministers. So, they are not accountable directly to Parliament.

Civil servants do appear before select committees, but they do so to speak on behalf of their ministers rather than in their own right, and are restricted in what they can say. They provide factual information rather than to explain or justify policy decisions or departmenta...