Bank Negara's move to exonerate former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad over the ringgit slump showed that Deputy Finance Minister Ahmad Maslan had been lying to the rakyat, said PAS' Pokok Sena MP Mahfuz Omar.

"The official statement by Bank Negara about the fall in the value of the ringgit proved that Malaysia had been lied to by Ahmad Maslan," he said in a statement today.

Ahmad had accused Mahathir, who had relentlessly criticised Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak for 1MDB's massive RM41.8 billion debt, as the reason why the ringgit was performing poorly.

This prompted Bank Negara to issue a statement , saying that the ringgit crash was due to global and domestic developments that had nothing to do with politics.

"There was no mention about Mahathir's attacks being a cause (for the weak ringgit).

"As such, I demand Ahmad to take responsibility and retract his false statement," said Mahfuz ( photo ).

He added that Ahmad's rhetorics were mere attempts to defend Najib on 1MDB.

Mahfuz added that Ahmad had made similar false claims in Parliament and therefore asked that he be referred to the Rights and Privileges Committee for action to be taken against him.

1MDB, which is owned by the Finance Ministry headed by Najib, is struggling to repay its debts.

This has raised concerns that it may impact the country's economy.