KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 7 — Umno acting president Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan today said that his party never gave RM90 million to PAS as alleged by Sarawak Report.
In a Sinar Harian forum today, Mohamad said that he himself has always been against money politics, and has even spoken at length about it in his 2019 new year speech.
“As long as money politics is rooted, any organisation will be damned,” he said, pointing out how corruption can wipe out even a great empire.
“I have never agreed to money politics, but with regards to PAS, I don’t know. As far as I know, Umno didn’t give.
“If anyone else gave, I don’t know,” Mohamad added.
Mohamad said he has also instructed one of the party’s vice president to relook Umno’s party constitution and among others, penalise money politics.
“So if we find that any of our members are still adamant, then they have to face stern actions by the party,” he warned.
PAS yesterday said that it is ready to offer full cooperation to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), which said an investigation into the matter has started.
Party vice-president Idris Ahmad reportedly said the party will even open its doors “25 hours a day” to facilitate the probe.
His comments came after MACC confirmed that an investigation has been initiated to look into a claim that Umno paid RM90 million to PAS leaders to secure their support for the party.
The Commission had in a statement, said that it will start investigating the claim, now that it has received a report from the police regarding the allegation.
A MACC source reportedly told Bernama that the probe was being conducted in accordance with the MACC Act 2009 and the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001.
On Saturday, news broke that Abdul Hadi had settled his defamation suit against Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown, who made the allegation, out of court. The details of their settlement, however, were not made public.
