Expected outcome from toothless 'heritage' players inquiry

 

YOURSAY | 'Didn’t they ever think they needed full authority to investigate the crime?'

'Heritage' players probe hits roadblock, says committee

Sherlock: The Independent Investigative Committee (IIC), in the first place, took up this task without a proper outline of power. It appears it is just a toothless kitten.

To come to a conclusion that the seven players are citizens of Malaysia, despite the shortcomings in documents, and cooperation from the responsible people, the notary (Lee Lin Jee) who signed off the "forged" birth certificates, is simply cutting corners.

Or, are you playing into some hidden hands?

Why waste time and money setting up the panel if you cannot get to the bottom of the matter? You must consider yourselves PI (private investigators), being paid to do a job for the client (rakyat Malaysia).

Fifty-nine pages? Don't you think it is a waste of ink and paper?

Vijay47: You have lamented, IIC, that you do not have the authority to summon witnesses, enforce submission of documents you require, or, as you have complained, “with crucial documents withheld and implicated parties refusing to cooperate.”

Can you please tell us exactly what authority you were armed with when you were established to probe this other shameful item in the country’s large basket of rotten fruit?

You then embark on contradiction; you hold that “the IIC has no authority to review the validity of the government’s decision in granting citizenship to the seven players”, and next, treat us to the dictates of Article 26(1) of the Constitution.

Did it never occur to you that perhaps your duty was to verify that the citizenship was at least granted in accordance with the Article? If Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail is possessed of such indubitable omnipotence, why even bother with being the IIC?

BobbyO: IIC is a group of prominent legal-minded individuals who were given the task to investigate the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) scandal.

How did they accept the offer in the first place? Didn’t they ever think that they needed full authority to investigate the crime?

As legal-minded individuals, they should be very well-versed in the laws of the nation. Or were they appointed to hoodwink the Malaysian public? Were these groups of so-called legal minds helping to sidetrack the minds of the people?

As if they did not know their limitations in the first place. Are Malaysians being led by the nose by these so-called chameleons?

Hmmm: I, for one, am not surprised at the outcome at all. In fact, many of the commenters here had already said at the outset that the IIC will be a waste of time and money.

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It wouldn't be half as bad if the IIC had just concluded that it had reached a roadblock and nothing could be concluded, and left it as that.

Instead, it chose to conclude in its report that the seven foreigners are Malaysian citizens, which makes me believe that this must have been the objective of this so-called investigative committee. If we look at it in detail, we can see how that conclusion defies logic.

The committee itself acknowledged that the documents were forged. They even blamed the FAM secretary-general, Noor Azman Rahman, for not scrutinising the documents.

They also questioned how the public notary could have certified it. But in the same breath, they conclude that the seven foreigners are Malaysian citizens.

What documents exactly did these seven foreigners submit to get their citizenship? The same forged documents? Did the National Registration Department (NRD) scrutinise these documents? Did the home minister scrutinise these documents? You were very quiet about that.

The greater onus is on those two individuals to scrutinise the documents as they were for the granting of citizenship, rather than the FAM secretary-general, as his purpose was merely for them to play football.

If the NRD deems them good enough to be granted citizenship, why should FAM need to further scrutinise the documents unless it doesn't trust the NRD?

Even those in the committee concluded that the documents were in order by concluding that the seven foreigners were granted citizenship legally. So, were the documents forged or not?

You can't say documents submitted by FAM were forged, but then conclude citizenships granted were legal.

Koel: "Despite several attempts to interview the notary named Lee Lin Jee to understand how he certified the documents, the IIC said that he did not cooperate."

According to the International Federation of Association Football (Fifa), Malaysia falsified the citizenship documents. So is this useless committee now telling the country that this man did it?

If so, he has betrayed his country and should be reported. What recommendations is the committee making for this?

But hang on, who was his department head who supervised his work? Or is this committee telling Malaysians that this man is an independent operator who is allowed to hand out citizenship on his own accord? Go tell your fairytales children. Even they won't believe you.

This committee should be disbanded immediately for idiocy or for trying to hoodwink Malaysians.

How much are we paying this lot, by the way?

Cogito Ergo Sum: Another committee, another dead end. How much were the members paid?

Without the statutory authority to summon and question witnesses, what was the function of this investigation team?

Without documentary evidence, how can one come to the conclusion that the players are “Malaysian”? A former chief justice, no less, headed the committee, and now comes up with this absurd result.

Another poor attempt to whitewash an internationally embarrassing foul-up. Like the 1MDB debacle. You will be exposed soon during the appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

RZee: Hogwash. What a useless report and a waste of taxpayers’ money.

They cannot find the actual person who did the dirty deed; the system was deficient, Azman was wrong and should be hauled up; the police need to investigate this further, but the seven players are citizens.

Shouldn’t their report have concluded that the citizenship issue is therefore still open and unproven? - Mkini