Make televised Shabery testimony to PAC a precedent, says Kit Siang

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 11 — Parliamentary rules should be amended to allow Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek’s testimony before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and future hearings to be broadcast to the public, according to DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang.

Lim said Malaysia’s Parliament still lagged behind legislatures the world over as the PAC here is not empowered to hold public hearings, unlike the House of Commons in England and many other countries that use a similar legislative system.

“The 89 Members of Parliament from Pakatan Rakyat are prepared to give support to allow the PAC to immediately conduct public hearings,” he said in a statement.

“Are the Barisan Nasional MPs prepared to co-operate with the PR MPs to give effect to the parliamentary reform to allow the PAC to hold public hearings to allow both members of the public as well as the media to be present at its meetings?”

Ahmad Shabery (picture), who is now multimedia and communications minister, came under fire after the Auditor-General’s (A-G) 2012 Report found that the Youth and Sports Ministry — which he led until recently — spent RM1.6 million from government coffers to pay for a concert featuring Korean pop stars during the Youth Day celebrations last year.

The A-G’s findings contradict earlier statements by Shabery, who had reportedly said that the concert was paid for by private sponsors and not the government.

Current Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin later verified the A-G’s findings on the K-pop concert, saying that the government was forced to pay for the concert after the planned sponsorship fell through.

Ahmad Shabery, however, remained adamant that the Youth and Sports Ministry had done no wrong in hosting the K-pop concert under his watch and requested that his testimony before the PAC — which is expected to probe selected issues raised by the A-G — be telecast live, according to a report by news portal Malaysiakini.

Lim today said that Shabery’s appearance before the PAC would set a good precedent as the rest of the ministers, including Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, would then have no reason to be exempted from being probed for whatever wastage, malpractice and corruption was perpetrated in the government.

Lim noted, though, that the PAC itself must come up to speed and submit a report to Parliament as soon as it reconvenes on October 21, so that MPs can come on board to support the push to amend the standing orders and allow public hearings.