PAC bowing to gov't secrecy is pathetic, slams Kit Siang

DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang slammed the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) under the leadership of Hasan Arifin as "pathetic" for its willingness to submit to secrecy demanded by the executive over the auditor-general's final report on 1MDB.

Lim also poured scorn on the defence that the 1MDB final audit report, which is presently under the Official Secrets Act, will be declassified when it is eventually tabled in Parliament, which could well be at the end of the year.

"This is most sad, shameful and even pathetic as the PAC chairperson should be telling the auditor-general and the executive that the classification of the auditor-general's final audit report on 1MDB (as secret) ended when it was presented to the PAC last Friday, and not when the PAC presents its report to Dewan Rakyat in the indefinite future.

"Instead of the chairperson of a key parliamentary committee jealously safeguarding parliamentary dignity and privileges from intrusion and interference by the Executive, we have a clear example where an occupant of a key parliamentary position is servilely and supinely submitting to executive trespass with parliamentary dignity and privileges," said Lim in a statement today.

Jail term

The 1MDB final audit report was placed under the Official Secrets Act which will see anyone leaking it facing a mandatory two-year jail term.

The report has been submitted to the PAC but its members are not allowed to take the report with them and can only view it in a special room.

"Why not lock the cari makan PAC chairperson Hasan Arifin together with the 13 other PAC members in the Parliament 'strongroom', requiring them to digest, understand and master the auditor-general’s final audit report only in the Parliament 'strongroom'?

"When ministers have access to OSA reports and documents, are they allowed to take these reports and documents home or to their offices to read, digest, understand and master them or are they locked in a cabinet 'strongroom' where they must complete the reading and understanding of the OSA reports concerned?" queried Lim.

Lim described this treatment of the PAC as an "intolerable and unacceptable executive humiliation of parliamentary honour, dignity and privilege" which he said must be purged in a special parliamentary motion.

"Why is Hasan Arifin as PAC chairperson so submissive as to submit to such humiliating, intolerable and unacceptable Executive trespass on parliamentary honour, dignity and privileges in the case of the PAC investigations into 1MDB?" challenged Lim. Mkini