KUALA LUMPUR, May 6 — Iskandar Puteri MP Lim Kit Siang reminded Malaysians today that the country is still far from being back on the road to integrity, despite the ongoing corruption trial of former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
In a press statement today, the DAP veteran highlighted a couple of events over the weekend, including remarks by former Dewan Rakyat speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia during the Sandakan by-election campaign in Pulau Berhala.
“First, the denial by an exalted personality like the former Speaker of Parliament that there was — or that anybody knows or cares about — the 1MBD scandal when Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia campaigned for PBS in the Sandakan by-election.
“Pandikar had been singly responsible for the subversion of the 13th Parliament in preventing it from performing its patriotic duty to save Malaysia from being condemned by the world as a global kleptocracy,” said Lim.
In a separate statement yesterday, he had also blasted the former Speaker and categorised Pandikar’s remarks as the continuation of his dereliction while the latter had been “Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1MDB Speaker of Parliament”.
Lim observed that Pandikar did not show a trace of regret or contrition over his actions as the Speaker of the 13th Parliament when he suppressed debates or probes into the 1MDB scandal while perpetuating an attempt to sideline the issue.
He scathingly accused the Sabah lawmaker of being irresponsible, unpatriotic and part of the group Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said wanted the country to return to its kleptocratic days under the previous Barisan Nasional (BN) regime.
“Mahathir stated that there were those who said the Harapan government was not as good as the previous administration because it rejected the immoral activity.
“I must thank Pandikar for finally identifying his role in the 1MDB scandal in his continuing attempt to white-wash the 1MDB scandal, belonging to the group referred to by the prime minister in Ipoh who felt the Pakatan Harapan government should not continue but that the country should go back to the corrupt government of the past which made Malaysia a kleptocracy.
“Pandikar has turned the Sandakan by-election into a touchstone about Malaysia’s commitment to get to the bottom of the heinous 1MDB scandal and to transform Malaysia from a global kleptocracy to a leading nation in integrity or to go back to the old corrupt ways,” Lim said.
He then turned his attention to former attorney general Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali who commented over the ratification of the Rome-Statute.
Apandi had claimed that the ratification would affect the Federal Constitution and the Malay Rulers, which was the reason the treaty was rejected when BN held Putrajaya.
“Apandi, who was appointed Attorney General in July 2015 when Abdul Gani Patail was summarily sacked from his office when it was rumoured that Gani was preparing to charge Najib for corruption, should explain why he aided and abetted in the 1MDB scandal,” Lim asked.
