DAP urges PAC chief to stop meddling in 1MDB audit report

Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Datuk Hasan Arifin should move a motion to censure the executive for classifying the auditor-general's final report on state investor 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) under the Official Secrets Act (OSA), DAP said today. The party's parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang said classifying the report was in contempt of Parliament and a breech of parliamentary privilege. He added it was also against all principles of accountability, transparency and good governance. Lim said the interim audit report on 1MDB presented to PAC last July was not classified under OSA. The Gelang Patah MP further said that the final audit report was a classified document as long as it had not been presented to PAC, but the classification should cease to apply once it was presented to the bi-partisan committee, and as such would become the property of Parliament. "Surely, PAC is not barred from presenting the auditor-general's final audit report to Parliament or has the auditor-general's final audit report have to be excluded in whatever PAC report on the 1MDB to be tabled in Parliament? "I do not believe that auditor-general wants his final audit report on 1MDB to be classified under the OSA, just as he had not classified his earlier interim report on 1MDB under the OSA," Lim said in a statement. He said parliamentarians and Malaysians must be told who instructed the report to be classified under OSA even after it was presented to the bi-partisan parliamentary committee. "Is it Attorney-General, Tan Sri Apandi Ali or Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak himself? "Let Najib come out forthright whether he agrees that the auditor-general's final audit report on the 1MDB should continue to be under OSA even after presentation to PAC," he said. – March 5, 2016.]]>