PKR is disappointed that the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) was recently concluded without proper transparency nor real engagement with the public, businesses and lawmakers. Lawmakers have not been given the new economic cost benefit studies and the TPPA texts will only be released 30 days later.

PKR now demands that the International Trade and Industry (Miti) to immediately release the long overdue cost-benefit studies for all to see. TPPA will most likely be debated in Parliament in January 2016, therefore full and early transparency of all relevant documents and economic data need to happen now.

PKR takes the view that the Malaysian public and businesses remain largely unfamiliar with the TPPA. Most senior managers and CEOs will struggle to explain how their businesses will be impacted, what more craft appropriate strategies. Consumer advocates are absolutely right that prices of medicine and knowledge related goods are set to rise.

The warnings of eminent and Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, in particular on the issue of sovereignty and investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), are real. It is against this backdrop of the current position and views, that PKR now pose the two following questions to Najib Abdul Razak:

1) Was the matter concluded primarily to please your golfing buddy, Barack Obama? PKR notes that the Wall Street Journal and New York Times recently reported that the US Justice Department’s Kleptocracy Initiative has opened a corruption investigation on Najib.

2) As finance minister, how will the TPPA limit our economic policy options as we slowly but surely descend into an economic recession in 2016? What sovereign policy space options have you ceded to TPPA?

WONG CHEN is MP for Kelana Jaya.