Malaysians must make clear their protest and opposition to the shocking though expected announcement by the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Datuk Hasan Arifin two days ago that the PAC report into its investigations into the RM55 billion 1MDB scandal will not be ready for tabling in the Dewan Rakyat in the March/April meeting.
This is because Hasan’s announcement will open the way for an indefinite postponement of PAC report on its investigations into the 1MDB scandal, which had already stained Malaysia’s international reputation by giving the nation the third ranking in the world’s “worst corruption scandals in 2015”.
In fact, I will not be surprised if the “cari makan” PAC Chairman will find some reason to further postpone submission of the PAC Report into 1MDB in the May meeting of Parliament – kicking the ball to the end of the year for the 25-day budget meeting from 17th October to 24th November 2016.
Just as “justice delayed is justice denied”, the “cari makan” PAC Chairman must also understand that “accountability delayed is accountability denied”!
Malaysians must make clear their disgust that the PAC Chairman has no sense of national priority and urgency to ensure that the PAC should “burn the midnight oil” and for PAC members to work doubly or even trebly hard to complete PAC investigations for presentation of its report to Parliament and the country without any undue delay – as the derailment of PAC investigations into 1MDB for close to four months last year after Najib’s purge of the government in the sackings of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Attorney-General must be deplored as a great setback to the principles of democratic accountability and good governance in Malaysia.
Why is the PAC under the Chairmanship of Arifin taking its own sweet time, as if completely indifferent and unaware of the national and international interests about the early and swift outcome of PAC investigations into 1MDB?
With Hasan’s announcement that the PAC Report on the 1MDB had been kicked into the distant future, the Auditor-General’s interim report on 1MDB submitted to the PAC in July should be made public without any delay.
The PAC should table the Auditor-General’s interim report on 1MDB at the Special Parliament next Tuesday or Wednesday as part of the PAC Interim Report on 1MDB so that the AG’s interim 1MDB report could be made public and studied by Malaysians. What are the skeletons in the Auditor-General’s Interim Report on the 1MDB that the interim report must be kept hidden from parliamentary and public knowledge and scrutiny?
What are the real objections for the Auditor-General’s interim report on 1MDB to be tabled in Parliament next week so that it could be made public immediately, when the Second Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah had publicly claimed that the AG’s interim report had cleared 1MDB of any “wrongdoing”?