KUALA LUMPUR: Opposition leader Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said the fact that the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) report on Bank Negara Malaysia’s forex trading losses in the 1990s was not discussed or debated makes it yet another “political move”.
She asked why the report only reached the opposition’s table this morning, the last day of parliament for the year.
“This is politically motivated. This report was ready and sent to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong six weeks ago. It should have been given to us earlier. Why wasn’t it? Today, when we asked to debate the findings, it was rejected.
“This shows that whatever we have assumed before about the RCI is true: it is a political move over an issue that was resurrected after so many years to implicate their political adversaries,” she said at a press conference in the parliament building here today.
DAP secretary-general and Bagan MP Lim Guan Eng said he was shocked that the RCI report was tabled on the last day of the current session of parliament.
“This report has made some shocking recommendations, and just now when I got up to ask that MPs be allowed to debate on the report, the minister said the decision would be made later.
“I hope that something this significant will be given the space and not be covered up so that it can be decided later on by the federal government. It must be debated in parliament.”
He said the recommendations in the report were very significant and of high impact.
“The findings suggest action be taken against a former prime minister, finance minister, Bank Negara and its governor, all the board of directors, auditor-general, Khazanah and other ministries and their staff. Almost the whole financial system was implicated.”
Lim said he had brought up the matter in parliament in 1994 and, back then, the amount that was reported was just RM10.7 billion.
“Now the amount reported is RM31.5 billion. Now we see a figure that was not reported in parliament back then.
“How can RM21 billion be hidden by Bank Negara accounts or any other accounts? This raises serious questions.”
Lim said despite the figure being amortized over 10 years it still did not make sense.
“It is not easy to amortize RM20 billion even if its over a period of 10 years. It will be detected by international monetary observers. How could it then be done that even international experts could not detect it?
“If it was done over a 10-year period, they why weren’t there recommendations to charge the prime minister and finance minister in 2004? Don’t tell me the prime minister at that time didn’t know? Are you going to seek action against Pak Lah (former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi)?
“Was there a conspiracy to hide information? Then what assurances do we have that information has also been hidden on the current scandals? How can such a huge sum be hidden? ”
Amanah’s Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad said the date of the report was Oct 13, yet the report was only given to the opposition today.
“In fact they could have put the report on our tables on the first day of parliament a month ago.
“You are playing with this RCI, it should have been the most important agenda of this parliamentary session.”-FMT
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