PETALING JAYA, Sept 15 — PKR’s Rafizi Ramli today submitted a Private Member’s Bill to Parliament, seeking the enactment of a law that prohibits the prime minister from taking on the portfolio of finance minister.
The Pandan MP said if approved, the Bill would then force Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to relinquish his current post as finance minister, which he said could help restore confidence in Malaysia’s finances.
Rafizi also claimed that the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) controversy is among the key reasons spreading investor fear in the Malaysian economy and that replacing Najib could help reverse this negative perception.
“This is the only medicine to solve this confidence crisis that is attached to this prime minister (Najib).
“This is why I have submitted the private members bill to separate the post of minister of finance with the prime minister,” Rafizi told a press conference here.
Rafizi proposed the new law be named the Separation of the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Posts Act.
The opposition are now pushing hard for Najib’s resignation as prime minister over a raft of financial scandals including allegations of financial misappropriation surrounding 1MDB, and contentious RM2.6 billion cash deposits into his personal account two months before Election 2013.
They claim the controversies were directly causing the country’s deteriorating economy.
Global credit rating agencies like Fitch and Moody’s have pointed out that much of Malaysia’s economic woes are caused by external factors like the decline in oil prices and China’s slowed growth, but did not discount the uncertainties arising from the financial scandals as a factor behind the lost in investors confidence.
Najib yesterday announced a raft of measures aimed at addressing the economic problems.
He also admitted that negative sentiments contributed to the plunging ringgit and stock prices but maintained that they were only perceptions.
