Notice of parliamentary motion to reject PAC Report on 1MDB scandal tabled in April 2016 and instruction to PAC to conduct fuller and more comprehensive investigation into 1MDB scandal to cleanse Malaysia of ill-repute as global kleptocracy
I have today submitted a motion to the Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia which reads:
“That this House rejects the Report of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on 1MDB tabled in April 2016 as unsatisfactory and not comprehensive enough and resolves that the PAC should conduct a fuller and more comprehensive investigation in the 1MDB scandal which had brought Malaysia the 3Is – infamy, ignominy and iniquity – of a global kleptocracy.”
In compliance with Standing Order requirement for motions which require 14 days’ notice, I call on the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of parliamentary affairs, Datuk Seri Azalina Othman, to ensure that this motion can be debated on the last sitting of Parliament on April 5, 2018 and that a full day is set aside for the debate on this motion.
In fact, the importance and urgency of the matter should require this motion to be brought forward to be debated earlier, and I call on the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak to resolve that this motion should take priority and be debated in the Dewan Rakyat either on Thursday 29th March or Monday 2nd April 2018.
It is now more urgent to debate this motion, which calls for the rejection of the PAC report on 1MDB tabled in Parliament in April 2016 as satisfactory or comprehensive enough, because of the outrageous parliamentary answer given by the Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister, Datuk Jailani Johari, that 1MDB-related information which is unverified - as those stated in the PAC report and outcome of investigations of the police and the Attorney-General’s Chambers - will be considered fake news.
This is a most laughable and outrageous answer, and the latest example where Ministers and Deputy Ministers are competing to make Malaysia the laughing stock of the world at a time when the whole world has been awash with IMDB news and developments which the Malaysian Government is desperately trying to suppress – presenting the image of a boy trying the plug the hole in the dike, except that this is not a hole but a yawning canyon with tidal floods.
Jailani is also shockingly uninformed on parliamentary matters. He seemed not to have known that the PAC report has not been accepted by the Dewan Rakyat, and remains a report of the Public Accounts Committee.
Will Parliament accept the PAC Report on the 1MDB scandal although it is most unsatisfactory and not comprehensive enough, and does nothing to restore Malaysia’s reputation and integrity in the world as to purge and cleanse Malaysia of the 3Is - infamy, ignominy and iniquity – of a global kleptocracy.
It will be to the eternal shame of Parliament if it accepts such an unsatisfactory report and hence the submission of my motion today.
Jailani’s answer is in fact the worst possible advertisement for the so-called anti-fake news bill which Azalina announced yesterday as ready for Parliament next week.
It would appear that unless verified by the government, everything whether happening or reported locally or internationally about the 1MDB scandal is fake news.
Even US President Donald Trump, who must be credited with the evil genius of discovering the possibility of using anti-fake news campaign to protect himself from scrutiny and accountability for abuses of power and corrupt practices, dare not go so far as to introduce legislation virtually branding all information unverified by the government and relevant authorities as “fake news”.
The Malaysian Prime Minister is doing what even the US President dare not do!
This is another world history achieved by Najib, not only in making Malaysia into a global kleptocracy, but in out-Trumping Trump in making Malaysia the world “Fake News” capital by declaring all 1MDB information unverified by the Najib government as “Fake News”!
Have Malaysian Ministers and MPs so lost their moral compass, which Malaysian tycoon Robert Kuok has stressed in his Memoirs as one of the two most important factors determining the rise or fall of nations, that we can complacently regard the forthcoming anti-fake news legislation as mean to “protect the public from fake news, and from becoming victims of fake news” when it is actually meant to protect and insulate the Najib administration from full scrutiny and accountability for the 1MDB scandal, which has made Malaysia even more infamous than African nations which until the Najib premiership held a virtual monopoly for the epithet of global kleptocracies!