Will wonders never cease?
Former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was never a fan of the Democratic Action Party (DAP) during his 22-year tenure as PM, and even after his retirement, he’s nary said a kind word to the longtime Opposition party.
He changed all that last night when he came to the defence of DAP’s Petaling Jaya Utara MP and parliamentary Public Accounts Committee member Tony Pua, whose continuing criticism of sovereign development fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) have led many to accuse him of being politically biased.
“They said Tony Pua is biased, that he is one-sided. But the others are biased too, they are on Umno’s side. So they are all considered biased,” Dr Mahathir said yesterday evening at buka puasa event with (of all people) Malay-Muslim right wing group Perkasa.
“So in the end you, you might as well not have (PAC). And we (Barisan Nasional) will last through the next elections,” he added, as quoted by The Malaysian Insider‘s Anisa Shukry.
Yesterday, UMNO lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah called for Pua to resign his position in the PAC due to his “biased” position on the 1MDB issue, to ensure that the Finance Ministry-owned state fund is investigated fairly and transparently.
“I’ve noticed Pua, as a PAC member, has issued a lot of statements which can affect investigations into the company.
“As such, I propose that he withdraw himself from PAC to return the public’s confidence that the inquiry can be conducted fairly and transparently,” Shafee was reported saying.
PAC chairman Nur Jazlan Mohamed took a stand against Shafee and called for the acerbic UMNO lawyer to stay out of his committee’s dealings, saying that Pua had never used internal PAC information in his public attacks against 1MDB.
Dr Mahathir, who has been one of 1MDB and current PM Najib Razak’s most vociferous critics, also called into question the effectiveness of auditing 1MDB’s accounts in order to uncover wrongdoings at the company.
“Audits cannot detect all wrongdoings. Auditors just read the accounts. The person doing the accounts can lie if they want to.
“They can do all sorts of lies, so the audit would not be able to detect it.”
Keep on truckin’, Dr M. You and the Crown Prince of Johor are the only people keeping up the pressure on the 1MDB issue without fear of getting arrested.
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