Deputy Speaker Datuk Lim Si Cheng should not under any circumstances �protect� the government from embarrassing Opposition questions about high-profile corruption

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Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang  
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(Parliament, Tuesday) I protested in Parliament this morning at not being given the chance to ask a supplementary question on the third question by the Barisan Nasional MP for Penampang Donald Peter Mojuntin on government actions to make the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) more effective  and �customer-friendly� in dealing with complaints.

This was denied by the Deputy Speraker, Datuk Lim Si Cheng who was in the Chair.

I had wanted to ask in my supplementary question to the Minister in the Prime Minister�s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz the ACA failure deal effectively with the five-year-old report by over one thousand people, comprising opposition leaders, NGO representatives and concerned citizens, on January 27, 2001 over the RM1.8 billion MAS acquisition of Tajudin Ramli�s MAS stake by the government at RM8 per share when the market price was RM3.68 per share.

I had wanted to ask Nazri whether he would agree that one criteria on the effectiveness of ACA is its ability to deal with high-profile cases like the RM1.8 billion Tajudin-MAS sell-back scandal, whether it is a case of �national service� or �national betrayal�.

I had also wanted to know why the ACA had backtracked on its new transparent policy announced in July 2003 on three measures  to  address public concern for more transparency, viz:  

�         The ACA will from now on keep all complainants informed on the status of investigations into their reports if they want it.

�         Heads of government departments will be  informed of the decision of the Attorney-General on investigations involving their subordinates. 

�         The ACA  will issue statements about cases that are still under investigation if it feels necessary, including those already decided by the Attorney-General. 

This is because this new ACA transparency had been a �dead letter� from the very outset and had never been implemented in the past three years, including on the Tajudin-MAS sell-back scandal, raising the question whether this is another case of betrayal of the present government�s pledge of an all-out war against corruption, without fear or favour and regardless of office or rank � another failure to implement the  2004 general election promise that  Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will become a modern-day �Justice Bao�.

(11/07/2006)