Third tranche of questions for Salleh – from 1MDB, PISA 2015 to Aleppo

Yesterday, I put to the Minister for Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak a second tranche of five questions to answer so that he could restore his right to ask questions and demand answers from others, as he had forfeited such right when as a Minister responsible for the portfolio of information, had failed to answer numerous questions about government scandals and failings.

Today, I put to Salleh a third tranche of five questions for him to answer to perform his Ministerial duty before he could start asking questions and demanding answers from others.

My third tranche of five questions are:

Question 11:

One of the questions posed in an electronic media today is as follows:

“If 1MDB is squeaky clean, why are people charged abroad?”

In Singapore, bank officer Yvonne Seah was jailed for two weeks, while her supervisor Yaw Yee Chee was jailed for 18 weeks for abetting businessman Jho Low to launder funds linked to 1MDB.

While the Singapore government has prosecuted the few private investment bankers and closed BSI Bank and Falcon private bank, nothing seems to have happened in Malaysia to the few, untouchable men, namely Jho Low and the prime minister's stepson Riza Aziz, without whom this massive financial scandal could not have taken place, causing US$3.5 billion to be stolen from the Malaysian people, as alleged by US attorney-general Loretta Lynch.

Can Salleh explain the unending reverberations in other countries of the roiling international 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal, when the Malaysian government continues with its pretence that there is nothing wrong with 1MDB.

Are Yvonne Seah and Yaw Yee Chee wrongly convicted and jailed in Singapore?

Question 12:

Would Salleh agree that the Court of Appeal’s acquittal of student activist Muhammad Safwan Anang of his sedition conviction this morning is most welcome and encouraging.

Would Salleh raise at the Cabinet meeting tomorrow on the need for the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to honour his 2012 promise to repeal the archaic Sedition Act and to present such repeal in the March meeting of Parliament?

Meanwhile, the Cabinet should instruct the Attorney-General to stay all prosecutions under the Sedition Act and direct a moratorium on any further use until the repeal of the Sedition Act in the March meeting of Parliament.

Question 13:

Does Salleh agree that Malaysia, whether Cabinet, Parliament, the civil society or the citizenry cannot accept with complacency and equanimity the epithet of a global kleptocracy – defined as a rule by a thief or thieves.

In November 2012, an academician Professor Dr. Syed Farid Alatas warned that Malaysia may descend into a “kleptocracy” if corruption is not addressed effectively and comprehensively.

Four years later, Farid’s dire warning has come to pass.

Would Salleh raise in the Cabinet tomorrow the need for Malaysia to launch an international campaign to rebut and refute the ignominy and infamy of being regarded world-wide as a global kleptocracy?

DAP and Pakatan Harapan leaders are prepared to take part in such an international campaign to rebut or refute the epithet of Malaysia as a global kleptocracy.

There are political leaders in the country who claim they remain committed to combat corruption, but they have no quarrel with Malaysia being regarded world-wide as a “global kleptocracy”, have no concerns about the international 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal or not bothered who is “MO1”. Does Salleh agree these political leaders are “wolves in sheep’s clothing” in the fight against corruption and even worse, kleptocracy and cannot be trusted?

Question 14:

Two full weeks after the release of the results of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015, the Malaysian Education Ministry is still struggling how to give a satisfactory explanation as to why Malaysia’s PISA 2015 results had been disqualified and Malaysia excluded from the rankings of PISA 2015 in three subjects (mathematics, science, and reading) tested in what has been described as world’s school report.

Will Salleh raise this subject at tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting, and tell the Education Minister, Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid that there is no need for the Ministry to crack its head to invent a cock-and-bull story but to just tell the truth and if the Education Ministry was guilty of cheating and trying to get good results in PISA 2015, to admit the transgressions and to give an undertaking that such dishonesty in PISA tests would not happen again.

Question 15:

Would Salleh raise the recent spate of international disasters and tragedies like the assassination of the Russian ambassador in Ankara, the suspected terrorist attack in the killing of at least 12 people and the wounding of dozens more when a truck plowed through a Christmas market in Berlin against the backdrop of the destruction of Aleppo with hundreds of thousands of civilians killed across Syria in the worst mass slaughter since the genocide in Darfur so that Malaysia can learn the right lessons from such catastrophes and not allow the politics of race, religion and hate to continue to polarize, poison and divide multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-lingual and multi-cultural Malaysia?