The 20-day first meeting of the 14th Parliament ended yesterday on a high note with unanimous passage of the motion directing the Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee (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 for all related information to be made public.

This will be unthinkable in the 13th Parliament. In fact, such a motion would not see the light of day, like my motion at the last meeting of the 13th Parliament in March/April 2018 to find the PAC Report unsatisfactory and to direct the PAC to conduct a “fuller and more comprehensive investigation into the 1MDB scandal which had brought Malaysia the 3Is – infamy, ignominy and iniquity – of a global kleptocracy”.

It is quite remarkable that there is a change of mindset among Opposition MPs, as UMNO/BN MPs would have fought tooth-and-nail to stymie any comprehensive investigation into the 1MDB scandal in the 13th Parliament.

In fact, I was suspended from Parliament for six months each in the 13th Parliament, turned into a “parliamentary ghost” and as I said in Parliament yesterday, I was never more ashamed as a Member of Parliament during the 13th Parliament as there was a conspiracy where the 1MDB scandal was elevated into a taboo subject, where questions could not be asked or motions moved. Read the rest of this entry »