Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang today questioned the reason behind the slew of inaccurate and contradictory statements made by the prime minister and his ministers in Parliament recently.

The Ipoh Timor MP also took the opportunity to egg on the ruling government on whether those who had made the wrong statements would be referred to the committee of privileges as his colleague, Bukit Glugor MP Karpal Singh, was.

During the year's first parliamentary sitting in May, Premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi wrongly claimed that jailed former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim did not lodge a police report in 1999 on the Perwaja Steel scandal. One month later, his deputy in internal security, Noh Omar apologised for the mistake.

Last week, between Deputy Minister in the PM's Department M Kayveas and Finance Ministry parliamentary secretary Dr Hilmi Yahya, the government provided the House with three different answers when queried on the status of the Anti-Corruption Agency investigations into former MCA president and transport minister Dr Ling Liong Sik.

On Thursday, Minister in the PM's Department Mustapa Mohamed wrongly claimed that Lim's second police report lodged on the matter in 2002 did not refer to Ling, when in fact it did.

In a third case, Hilmi wrongly denied government involvement in the alleged cheating case involving a RM38 million compensation award to 52 Orang Asli families. He later admitted his mistake, confirming that the Orang Asli Affairs department director general was among the trustees to the award.

On a fourth matter, Lim said that another Minister in the PM's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz, Mustapa and Kayveas had all made inaccurate statements pertaining to the status of the '18 high profile corruption cases' in which the government had early this year claimed to be investigating.

Can make mistakes

In his statement, Lim said the DAP would "never suggest that the prime minister, Nazri, Mustapa, Kayveas (left) and Hilmi be referred to the committee of privileges, as this would be a colossal waste of time. Parliamentarians, including ministers, are not saints and can make mistakes.

"Similarly, there can be no reason why Karpal should at all be referred to the committee of privileges for a mistake which he had acknowledged."

Leveling blame for the mistakes on "a shocking drop in standards of civil service, Lim said there should be a "total shake up" of the civil service support for the front-bench, to ensure that such inaccuracies do not crop up in future Parliament sittings.