Why are PAC members overseas now, its chief is asked

The reasons given by Public Accounts Committee chairman Hasan Arifin for postponing meetings scheduled to receive the auditor-general’s final audit report on 1MDB are seen as "neither credible nor acceptable".

"Did any one of the PAC members indicate that he will be overseas and not available for the meetings, today and tomorrow, when the PAC fixed these two dates as the last PAC meeting on Feb 11?" DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang asked today.

"If not, why the amazing development that 'most PAC members are overseas', as if everyone among the Barisan Nasional PAC members have been scurrying overseas on these two dates?" Lim further questioned.

The Gelang Patah MP was responding to Hasan's announcement that tabling of the auditor-general's report on 1MDB to the PAC has been postponed to the first week of March.

Hasan said the PAC meeting was postponed because most PAC members would be absent and that it is important that all members are present to hear the audit report on 1MDB.

In stressing that there is no good reason for the PAC members to be absent, Lim said the final audit report would also be available later, in print form, when tabled in Parliament together with the PAC report on its 1MDB investigation.

'They must be condemned by the public'

"Let's have a headcount of the 14 members of PAC. Who are overseas? Why are they overseas and when did they plan their overseas trips?" Lim asked.

He added that the PAC members absent should be condemned by the public, even if they were not referred to the parliamentary Committee of Privileges for dereliction of duty.

Hasan himself, Lim said, should similarly be hauled up before the parliamentary committee if found to have misled the public with his statement that "most PAC members" are currently away.

This is the second time the tabling of the audit report on 1MDB to the PAC has been postponed.

The PAC was originally supposed to receive the report in the middle of December last year, but this was delayed, allegedly at the auditor-general's request.

The PAC received the auditor-general's preliminary report on 1MDB on July 9, 2015, but it will not be revealed to the public until after the full report is tabled in Parliament. -Mkini