DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang today called on the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) to "stop wasting public funds" by investigating the excessive claims by 14 parliamentarians but instead should focus on another aspect of the matter.

In a statement today, he said the agency should focus its investigations into non-meeting parliamentary claims by members of Parliament exceeding RM5,000 a month in the past four years.

"If the ACA is efficient, competent, professional and independent, it would have known by now that it is not unusual for MPs to submit meeting claims exceeding RM10,000 a month when Parliament meets for at least three weeks in a month, based on the meeting, subsistence, hotel, telephone, mileage or airfare and others claims which they are entitled to," Lim said.

He added that the problematic cases were only non-sitting parliamentary claims - whether above or below the RM10,000 monthly figure.

He claimed the ACA investigations into MP's excessive claims or improper parliamentary claims have become a "farce and charade".

No business

"The ACA is investigating things it has no business to waste time on while avoiding investigating areas which it should focus on if it is serious about combating corruption and abuses of power, regardless of rank or status," Lim said.

His remarks followed a Nanyang Siang Pau report today which quoted ACA head of investigations Nordin Ismail as saying that the agency has started summoning and interrogating some of the 14 parliamentarians linked to the excessive claims issue.

Nordin said the ACA has completed its first stage of investigation - gathering documents from Parliament's finance division - and is now conducting the second stage of investigations such as interviewing the concerned MPs and hotel personnel to verify the MPs' claims.

However, he refused to tell the vernacular daily how many of the MPs concerned have been interviewed apart from saying that the ACA is confident to complete the investigation in the given time frame.

'ACA should be censured'

Lim suggested that the ACA "saves time and public funds" by dropping all investigations into meeting parliamentary claims exceeding RM10,00 a month.

This is to show a "no-nonsense" attitude after the pledge by the new premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in his maiden parliamentary speech for an "clean, incorruptible, modest and beyond suspicion" administration, Lim said.

"Otherwise, the ACA should be censured for a gross dereliction of duty, a shocking lack of professionalism and sheer cowardice in not daring to investigate what should be the proper subject of concern of the agency."

The excessive claims issue came into media limelight after parliamentary secretary in the Prime Minister's Department Noh Omar revealed in the Dewan Rakyat on Sept 24 that 14 MPs had filed claims exceeding RM10,000 a month for last year.

The claims have been widely reported in the media as mileage claims, but Noh's list involved not just travel allowances but also lodging and other claims.

Topping the list was PAS MP for Jeli, Mohd Apandi Mohamad whose total claims between January 2002 and June 2003 exceeded RM200,000.