Kit Siang: PAC should summon Arul Kanda urgently

KUALA LUMPUR: Another reason for convening an emergency parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting, ventured DAP Parliamentary Leader Lim Kit Siang, was to ask 1MDB Chief Arul Kanda Kandasamy to explain why he should not be referred to the Committee of Privileges next month for “lying” to the PAC when he claimed that Aabar Investments PJS Ltd (Aabar BVI) was related to Aabar Investment PJS (Abu Dhabi).

Lim’s first reason for the emergency meeting was the joint statement on Tuesday by the five Opposition members on the PAC that Chairman Hasan Arifin was wrong when he said the Committee found no evidence of wrongdoing and that no money went missing from 1MDB.

Arul Kanda, recalled Lim who has been suspended from Parliament as Gelang Patah MP, also dismissed a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report that Aabar Investments PJS Limited (BVI) was unrelated to Aabar Investments PJS (Abu Dhabi) as a “speculative newspaper article”. “It’s now the Umno/Barisan Nasional (BN) leadership which regrets and rues the tabling of the PAC Report on 1MDB although it was not fully satisfactory.”

Within four days of the tabling of the PAC Report on 1MDB last Thursday, reminded Lim, Arul Kanda’s “lies” to the PAC in his testimony on December 18 last year was “exposed”. “The Abu Dhabi’s state-owned International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) told the London Stock Exchange in a statement 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 USD1.367 billion) by 1MDB as security deposit alone in 2012.”

This is the fastest result for any PAC Report in the nation’s 59-year parliamentary history, recalled the DAP veteran. “The five Opposition PAC members have been fully vindicated for signing the PAC Report on 1MDB although it did not go as far as it should in its findings and conclusions.”

Besides Aabar, said Lim, Arul Kanda should be asked to explain the “rather revealing and incriminating statements in his long-winded and self-righteous preface”, in particular when he said: “On the 4th of July a Special Task Force was set up which until today we don’t know who set it up, what were the terms of reference and what were the objectives of this task force.”

The PAC should ask Arul Kanda why he made such a statement, continued Lim. “They should establish whether there was a Special Task Force into the 1MDB, and even call on the four Tan Sris who were supposed to sit on the Special Task Force to testify at the PAC, then Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail, Bank Negara Governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Chief Commissioner Abu Kassim Mohamad and the Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar.”

“Arul seems to suggest a massive conspiracy against 1MDB and the Prime Minister and the PAC should question him on these related issues, like the sacking of the Gani Patail and even the sacking of Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.”

One other important thing which the PAC Report on 1MDB had achieved, as a result of the signing by the five Opposition PAC members, was the admission by the Najib Administration of the host of 1MDB scams, mismanagement, dubious loans and transactions in the past seven years, claimed Lim. “Until last Thursday, these had been dismissed as speculative and unverified allegations by irresponsible, biased or even Jewish/Zionist-inspired journalists in hostile foreign newspapers like the WSJ, New York Times, Financial Times or ‘unreliable websites’ like Sarawak Report.”

The greatest importance of the PAC Report on 1MDB was that henceforth no one, whether in 1MDB or the Najib Government, can dismiss its contents and refuse to give accountability with the blanket excuse that they were “unverified” or “speculative” allegations as they have now all been admitted officially by the PAC Report on 1MDB which is dominated by a majority of BN MPs, summed up Lim.

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