Speaker Pandikar must explain the double standards in allowing questions on Najib’s RM2.6 billion “donation” scandal in last parliamentary meeting but disallowing them in the current session
The Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia must explain the double standards in allowing questions on Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s RM2.6 billion “donation” scandal in the last parliamentary meeting but disallowing them in the current session.
Members of Parliament and the nation were promised last November by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said that the government would answer all questions on Najib’s RM2.6 billion donation scandal on the last day of the budget meeting on Dec. 3.
Right from the beginning of last year’s budget meeting when it started in October, Azalina had been avoiding and evading questions on Najib’s RM55 billion 1MDB and RM2.6 billion “donation” twin mega scandals, first saying on Oct. 20 that Najib will answer all questions on both scandals at a date to be fixed later.
After the Ministerial winding up of the debate on the Budget on 5th November, when again she avoided questions on the twin mega scandals, she told reporters in Parliament that the answer on the RM2.6 billion donation scandal would be given on the last day of Parliament on Dec. 3.
She said: "The RM2.6 billion is raised in every question during debates. If the PM answers today, there will still be continuous questions.
"It is better to accumulate (the questions) and answer them all on the last day. Yet it is still the PM prerogative."
But on the last day of the budget meeting on Dec. 3, there was a double cop-out.
Firstly, Najib disappeared and was not in the House to give the answer all MPs and the nation were waiting for.
Secondly, the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi in a three-minute fiasco performed a second cop-out with a cock-and-bull story to justify why he could not give any answer – which all MPs and the whole nation were waiting for as a result of a specific promise made by a Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department.
Zahid said nothing new, merely reiterating that the RM2.6 billion was a political donation, that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had identified the donor and that Putrajaya could not elaborate on the RM2.6 billion deposited in Najib’s personal bank accounts as it would prejudice investigations by the authorities.
More than two months have passed, and the RM2.6 billion “political” donation has become RM4.2 billion, and furthermore, what is the latest about the “investigation by the authorities” as there is no authority in Malaysia which seems to be currently investigating this multi-billion ringgit political donation scandal.
There is also the very pertinent question whether the “donor” for the RM2.6 billion had been identified.
However, in the current meeting of Parliament, MPs from Pakatan Harapan who submitted numerous questions on Najib’s RM2.6 billion “donation” scandal have found that the Speaker had disallowed their questions!
The Speaker must satisfy MPs and the Malaysian public for such double standards as it is completely unacceptable if the Speaker is now in the forefront blocking parliamentary query to get to the bottom of Najib’s twin mega scandals.