Speaker should overrule Nazri’s interference with parliamentary affairs
The Speaker, Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia, should overrule the blatant interference in in-house parliamentary matters by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of parliamentary affairs, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz and order that the Auditor-General’s national audit reports for 2011 be tabled in Parliament immediately without any delay.
The reason given by Nazri that the government will only table the Auditor-General’s 2011 audit reports about a week or two after the 2013 budget is presented by the Prime Minister-cum-Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak on Friday is utterly ridiculous, unacceptable and an outrageous affront to the concept and principle of parliamentary independence and autonomy, even in its most attenuated and diluted form after 55 years of encroachments by the UMNO/Barisan Nasional government!
Nazri said the tabling of the Auditor-General’s Reports are being held up so that “it won't steal the limelight from (debate on) the budget" is totally misconceived, misguided and a blatant abuse of executive power, especially as the annual audit reports by the Auditor-General are an integral and essential part of the annual budget debate by MPs.
Has Najib given Nazri the “green light” or the directive to hold back the Auditor-General’s 2011 Reports a week or two after his Budget 2013 presentation on Friday?
Are Najib and Nazri afraid that the Auditor-General’s 2011 audit in the Federal Accounts would contain explosive exposes like last year’s RM250 million “cow and condominium” scandal relating to the National Feedlot Corporation which has led to the resignation of one Cabinet Minister and the postponement at least once of the 13th General Election date?
Whether there are hidden time-bombs in the Auditor-General’s 2011 Report which would not only be most embarrassing but even be most detrimental to the Najib premiership is a completely extraneous factor which cannot justify the delay in the immediate tabling of the Auditor-General’s annual reports to Parliament when they are ready and available and been handed into the possession and jurisdiction of Parliament.
The Speaker should not allow anyone, be he the Prime Minister or the Minister in the PM’s Department in charge of parliamentary affairs, from interfering with the rights and privileges of MPs to have the Auditor-General’s Reports to be immediately tabled in the House.