One shock tactics UMNO/BN Ministers, leaders and cybertroopers like the Barisan Nasional Strategic Media Communications Director and Minister for Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government, Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan had been hashing in the past few days was in the form of the question on the social media: “U guys bodoh!! Why sign the report when u r only 80% satisfied. BODOH!”
However, the Opposition MPs’ signing of the Parliament Accounts Committee (PAC) Report, although not thoroughly satisfied about its findings and conclusions, have been fully vindicated by the swift solution about the “rogue” character of fake company Aabar Investments PJS Limited (Aabar BVI) in the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal.
The statement by the Abu Dhabi’s state-owned International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) to the London Stock Exchange on Monday that neither itself nor its unit Aabar Investments PJS have any links to British Virgin Islands-incorporated firm Aabar Investments PJS Limited which was paid RM4.24 billion (about US$1.367 billion) by 1MDB as security deposit in 2012 would not have come about if the PAC Report on 1MDB had not been signed and tabled in Parliament last Thursday.
With the PAC Report, IPIC and Aabar, as public listed companies in the London Stock Exchange had to make a mandatory public announcement that they had no relations to Aabar BVI, and had not received the RM4.24 billion payment from 1MDB in 2012 – an issue which had been in the public domain in the past four months but not from authoritative or official sources like the Malaysian PAC Report and could therefore be ignored by IPIC, Aabar and 1MDB.
The signing of the PAC Report on the 1MDB, though not fully satisfactory, has achieved the first fruits and I want congratulate the five Opposition PAC members for achieving this result within four days of the tabling of the PAC Report.
The PAC Report on the 1MDB is therefore the first step, not the last lap, in unveiling the intricacies and complexities of the first Malaysian global scandal with global dimensions – as illustrated by IPIC statement to the London Stock Exchange.
As clearly stated by the joint statement yesterday by the Opposition members on the PAC, PAC Deputy Chairman Dr. Tan Seng Giaw (Kepong), Dato’ Kamarul Baharin Abas (Telok Kemang), William Leong (Selayang), Dato’ Takiyuddin Hassan (Kota Bahru) and Tony Pua (PJ Utara), the five Opposition PAC members rejected the stand of the PAC Chairman Datuk Hassan Arifin who said the PAC found no evidence of wrongdoing and that no money went missing from 1MDB.
I suggest that Hasan Arifin should convene an emergency meeting of the PAC so that Malaysian public can know whether it was Hasan or the five Opposition MPs on PAC who are guilty of misrepresenting what the PAC had decided in its report on the 1MDB.
In their joint statement, the five Opposition PAC MPs stressed that the PAC Report showed that billions of ringgit have flowed out from 1MDB and were unaccounted for.
They said: “As such, we urged the PAC chairperson to retract his statements because they are baseless, misrepresent PAC’s views and are lies.
“We hope the PAC chairperson is not abusing his position as the head of a parliamentary committee for the BN and PM Najib Abdul Razak’s political interests.”
Hasan cannot keep his silence to the joint statement by the five Opposition PAC members, who must congratulated for signing the PAC Report so that Malaysian will see the “tip of the iceberg” of the 1MDB global scandal – as up to now, the powers-that-be had refused to admit that 1MDB represented any scandal at all, let alone a global scandal.
I had said that PAC member Tony Pua was over-generous to give 80 marks to the PAC Report on 1MDB as I would give it at most 60 marks.
I believe that at least 40% of the first global scandal in the nation’s history has still to be disclosed, and the challenge to every patriotic Malaysian is to uncover the whole sordid tale of the RM50 billion 1MDB global scandal.
In my opinion, the opposition MPs should not have signed the report. Seng Ngeow, Tony, William should have known better. At best, the should have signed under protest. As I wrote before, giving the report 80% ( which is usually taken as distinction level ), was over zealous and incorrect. Something like 20-30% would be nearer the standard. Not even a pass mark. As we now known, Arul lied and there are now more questions after the PAC report, then before. Soon, the Swiss and Lux investigators will show us how slip shot our PAC report was. I believe that DAP has lost quite a few brownie points in the way they approached the PAC report. I wonder if there are “behind the scene dealings” because I cannot see YB Tony being so easily conned.