Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and Tourism Minister Ng Yen Yen were let off the hook today as Parliament speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia shot down four motions tabled by the opposition.

Two of the motions filed by Mahfuz Omar (PAS-Pokok Sena) and Chong Chieng Jen (DAP-Bandar Kuching), were aimed at referring Najib to the rights and privileges committee on two separate counts of misleading the House.

NONE Chong’s motion was to refer Najib to the committee for misleading the House when he said the government never made any promises in any by-election, including the recent Sibu by-election.

Pandikar acknowledged that the premier’s infamous “ you help me, I help you ” statement has been widely circulated by the media, but pointed out that because it was said outside of parliament it falls out of his jurisdiction.

“The Prime Minister’s answer is that he made no promises, but this does not fall under my responsibility. I do apologise, but I have to reject this motion,” he said to indignation from Chong and other Pakatan Rakyat MPs.

Chong argued that if this was the basis of Pandikar’s ruling, it would also absolve opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim of having to face the committee as his statement on Apco was made outside of the House.

“The reality is clear. The Prime Minister said he made no promises in Sibu, but this is conflicting. Whether or not he had the intention to lie to the House, this is clear,” he said.

No discrepancies in answers

Earlier, Pandikar gave the same reason for rejecting Mahfuz’s motion, which claims Najib’s tabling of a motion to condemn Israel for the Freedom Flotilla attack rings hollow as the government continues to have business relations with Israel.

He said because the alleged conflicting statement made by Transport Minister Kong Cho Ha was made outside of parliament, it was not in his power to rule on any action.

NONE Teresa Kok’s (DAP-Seputeh) motion to refer Ng to the committee over conflicting figures on the cost of the Malaysian pavilion in Shanghai, China was rejected on the grounds that there was no conflict in the figures provided by Ng and her deputy James Dawos Mamit.

Pandikar said the figures given by both Ng and James were correct as they referred to different sets of itemised calculations.

He explained that Ng’s RM35 million figure referred to bills and maintenance fees while James’ figure of RM20 million was only for the building fees.

“After checking, another RM15 million (from James’ figures) was for operations of the Malaysian pavilion... so it comes up to the same figure,” he said.

The fourth motion filed by Fong Po Kuan (DAP-Batu Gajah) on the absence of the national crime index statistics on the police website was shot down as Pandikar ruled that the Home Ministry had already put up the index on its own ministry website as promised.