MP SPEAKS | Has the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairperson Ronald Kiandee misunderstood the intent and purpose of the parliamentary motion last August directing the PAC to re-open a detailed investigation into the 1MDB scandal?

The Parliamentary motion unanimously passed by all MPs last August directed the PAC to “conduct again a detailed investigation on the embezzlement of monies and the scandal with regard to 1MDB and its related companies in order to restore the dignity of the Dewan Rakyat; and that all related information should be made public”.

In his interview with the New Straits Times yesterday, Kiandee said that the PAC will “resurrect and deconstruct” the previously-concluded report on the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal that “cleared” former prime minister Najib Razak.

In the first place, the very unsatisfactory PAC report of the 13th Parliament on the 1MDB scandal never “cleared” Najib of any wrongdoing in the 1MDB scandal – a claim which Najib himself had repeatedly asserted before the 14th General Election but could not substantiate.

On March 25, 2018, I had emailed Najib to ask him to fix an appointment for him to show DAP National Publicity Secretary and MP for PJ Utara, Tony Pua, and myself, where in the PAC report on 1MDB it was indicated that he was absolved of any wrongdoing in the 1MDB scandal.

I said that Najib’s claim – that he had been cleared of any wrongdoing in the PAC report over 1MDB – was false and baseless, and called it the latest example of the “fake news” concocted and peddled by those in power in Putrajaya before the 14th General Election.

I was even prepared to indulge Najib by declaring that if he could not show chapter and verse from the PAC report absolving him of any wrongdoing in the 1MDB scandal, I would have been satisfied if he could have shown that he had been exonerated in the Auditor-General’s Report on 1MDB, which had not been public at the time on the ridiculous ground that it was classified under the Official Secrets Act.

But there was no response from Najib as he could neither quote chapter and verse either from the PAC report or the Auditor-General’s Report on 1MDB absolving him of any wrongdoing in the 1MDB scandal.

It was the mistaken mindset and mentality of Barisan Nasional MPs and leaders before the 14th General Election that the PAC report had absolved Najib of any wrongdoing the 1MDB scandal, and it is necessary for Kiandee to get rid of such a mistaken mindset and mentality if he is to live up to his responsibilities as PAC chairperson in the 14th Parliament.

How can the PAC or the auditor-general absolve Najib of any wrongdoing in the 1MDB scandal when neither the PAC nor the auditor-general had the opportunity to question him, despite his key role in 1MDB?

On hindsight, it is clear that if Najib had not been the prime minister, giving his blessings and authorisation to Jho Low to carry out his depredations and thievery through 1MDB, the 1MDB scandal would not have happened and Malaysia would never have suffered the infamy, ignominy and iniquity of being regarded worldwide as a global kleptocracy.

Kiandee should realise that the Parliamentary motion in August never asked the PAC of the 14th Parliament to “resurrect and deconstruct” – whatever that means – the PAC report on 1MDB but to carry out a detailed investigation into the 1MDB scandal – which the PAC of the 13th Parliament had not been able to do because of the obstruction, miscarriage and subversion of justice perpetrated by Najib’s agents in the PAC and Parliament.

The PAC report on the 1MDB scandal of the 13th Parliament failed Parliament and the nation as it failed to do justice to the biggest kleptocratic scandal in the nation’s history and it failed to save Malaysia from the infamy, ignominy and iniquity of being a global kleptocracy.

Let not the PAC report on the 1MDB scandal of the 14th Parliament repeat the errors of its predecessor.

LIM KIT SIANG is Iskandar Puteri MP.

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