I was shocked when I was informed by the press at about 3 pm about the cancellation of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Integrity (PSCI) meeting on Monday, March 12, 2007 to hear the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) director-general, Datuk Zulkipli Mat Noor and former top ACA officer and “whistleblower”, Mohamad Ramli Manan on serious allegations of corruption in the ACA. The announcement had been made by the PSCI Chairman Tan Sri Bernard Compok.

I was formally informed of the cancellation of the PSCI meeting by a parliamentary officer at 4.40 p.m. by phone, who told me that the Secretary to Parliament, Datuk Mahmood bin Adam, had signed the notice for the cancellation of the PSCI meeting on Monday for it to be faxed out to the PSCI committee members.

This must be the first time in the history of Parliamentary Select Committees not only in Malaysia but in the Commonwealth where the media are given earlier notice than the MPs concerned of the cancellation of a Select Committee meeting.

As the March 12 meeting to hear Zulkipli and Ramli was the formal decision of the PSCI meeting on Feb. 28, when it met to deal with issues concerning the scourge of the false identity card rackets in Sabah, any cancellation of the Monday meeting could only be made by the PSCI itself and not improperly and unilaterally by the Chairman, Tan Sri Bernard Dompok.

As PSCI Chairman, Bernard must not buckle down to ulterior and improper pressures to unilaterally cancel the Parliamentary Select Committee meeting on Monday to hear Zulkipli and Ramli on ACA corruption . Read the rest of this entry »