Did Azalina have pecuniary interest in the RM2.6b “donation”?

The Minister did not declare under Standing Order 35(6) whether she has any pecuniary interest in the RM2.6 billion political “donation” controversy before she moved the motion.

KUALA LUMPUR: Suspended Gelang Patah MP Lim Kit Siang has pointed out that Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Azalina Othman Said did not declare under Standing Order 35(6) whether she has any pecuniary interest in the RM2.6 billion political “donation” controversy before she moved a motion in Parliament to suspend him for six months. Lim was suspended for disagreeing with the Speaker’s decision to stop the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) from continuing investigations into the RM50 billion 1MDB and RM2.6 billion political “donation” controversies.

“It’s still not too late for Azalina to declare whether she has any pecuniary interest in the RM2.6 billion political ‘donation’ scandal,” added Lim who was DAP Parliamentary Leader before the suspension. He also called on all Ministers, Deputy Ministers and MPs who had been beneficiaries from this foreign funding in the last general elections to also “come clean” in the current 2016 Budget debate and declare how much they had benefited from Najib’s “largesse”.

He drew the attention of all Ministers, Deputy Ministers and MPs to Dewan Rakyat Standing Order 35(6) which stipulates that “A Member shall not speak on any matter in which he has a direct personal pecuniary interest (other than the matter of remuneration under any provision of the Constitution) without disclosing the extent of that interest”.

How many of the Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Umno /BN MPs are tainted by this foreign funding of RM2.6 billion in Najib’s personal accounts for the 13th General Election?

The suspended MP noted that Minister and Barisan Nasional Backbenchers’ Club (BNBBC) Chairman Shahrir Samad has since admitted that he was one of the beneficiaries and recipients from this foreign funding via personal accounts for the 13th General Election campaigning.

Lim, continuing, said that had he not been suspended, he would have asked Najib whether more than RM2.6 billion political “donation” had been deposited into his personal banking accounts and if so, what the final total was. “I would have also advised the Prime Minister to refund the RM2.6 billion to the Treasury as one way to resolve the scandal.”

The DAP veteran was confessing that he was still bewildered as to how Najib, who had been in public life for nearly four decades, serving at different times as Menteri Besar, Cabinet Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister for six years, had not realised the gravity of his misjudgment and error in receiving foreign funds for general elections campaigning in the country.

RM2.6 billion was an astronomical figure, he continued, and is in fact 26 times more than what was permissible to be spent by all the 222 Parliamentary candidates and 505 State Assembly candidates of the Barisan Nasional (BN) in the 13th General Elections. “The maximum expenditure which is legally permissible for a parliamentary candidate is RM200,000 while the maximum legal expenditure for a State Assembly candidate is RM100,000.”

With 222 Parliamentary candidates and 505 State Assembly candidates, Lim estimated that the maximum legal electoral expenditures for all the 222 Parliamentary and 505 State Assembly candidates of Umno/Barisan Nasional in the 13th General Election will come to RM44.4 million for all parliamentary candidates and RM50.5 million for all state assembly candidates or a grand total of RM94.9 million, not even reaching RM100 million.

“The RM2.6 billion in Najib’s personal accounts for the 13th General Election was therefore more than 26 times the legally permissible limit to be spent by all the BN parliamentary and state assembly candidates in the 13th General Elections,” he pointed out.

“Again, this could be more if the total donation into Najib’s personal accounts for the 13th General Election was more than RM2.6 billion.”