Pua: I did not “backtrack” from the PAC Report

KUALA LUMPUR: An incident where Bernama was found taking liberties with what parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman Hasan Arifin actually said about him, complained Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua, “only made it clear that there are powerful forces behind the scenes attempting to take control of the narrative” via official news government and Umno-controlled news sources including the News Straits Times (NST) and Utusan Malaysia. “It appears that someone has put words into the mouth of the PAC Chairman specifically to conduct a character assassination exercise.”

In this particular instance, he added, he believes Hasan as he made the extra effort to inform all PAC members of “this misreporting” by Bernama. “The article has since been corrected late yesterday evening.”

Elsewhere, said Pua who is also DAP National Publicity Secretary, the newspaper headlines of the NST and Utusan Malaysia makes for surreal reading for those who have actually read the PAC Report. “Instead of reporting that the critics of 1MDB were vindicated by the PAC Report, the NST screamed on its front page that the Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak was ‘vindicated’.”

“Utusan Malaysia followed up with the call for all critics to apologise to the Prime Minister.”

1MDB, not to be left out, claims that he was now “backtracking” from the findings of the PAC Report which was arrived at with the full consensus of all members of the committee, added Pua. “These people are either living in an alternate reality or are doing their utmost to paint what is incontrovertibly ‘black’ as ‘white’.”

For the record, Pua reiterated that the PAC Report was arrived at by consensus. “However, it appears that the 1MDB, NST, Utusan Malaysia, the Prime Minister and his band of BN leaders have a different copy of the PAC Report from the one which was tabled in Parliament.”

Najib’s involvement was also the reason why the PAC has agreed by consensus, that Article 117 of 1MDB’s M&A which grants the Prime Minister such powers, be abolished, together with the Board of Advisors, which he chairs, pointed out Pua.

Anyone who had read the 106-page PAC Report as well as the accompanying transcripts of PAC proceedings would not be able to find any other deliberation on the role and culpability of the Prime Minister, he argued. “Without the necessary bank statements and authentication documents from 1MDB, the PAC could not possibly ‘clear’ the Prime Minister, even if we had wanted to do it.”

The MP stressed that at no point in time did he “backtrack” from the PAC Report as 1MDB “desperately accused”. “I have stated that I am 80 per cent satisfied with the report because the PAC could have done more to uncover the discrepancies cited in the Report which remains a mystery, including the summoning of additional key witnesses.”

However, continued Pua, despite the lack of completeness in the report, based on information made available, the PAC Report was already able to arrive at the sufficiently damning findings and conclusions. “That is the bipartisan consensus in the PAC.”

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