Despite PKR strategic director Rafizi Ramli having lodged a police report over the alleged abuse of power involving Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak over the Ampang LRT extension line on Friday, the police are referring the matter to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

NONE This was in spite of Rafizi ( right ) claiming he had more trust in the Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) compared to the MACC in its investigations into the matter, following a team of MACC officers paying him a visit on the same day the revelations were made.

CCID director Syed Ismail Syed Azizan, when quizzed whether his department was probing the matter following Rafizi’s report, and whether police had began investigations, gave a curt reply.

“The matter is being referred to the MACC,” said Syed Ismail to Malaysiakini in a short SMS reply.

When asked further whether this means the police would not step in to investigate, Syed Ismail did not respond.

Rafizi alleged that Najib had interfered with the light rail transit tender award expected to be worth RM1 billion which was initially said to have been awarded to Balfour Beatty-Invensys Consortium (Balfour).

As with the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) case also highlighted by Rafizi, the case was probed by both the MACC and the police.

‘Repeat of NFC back and forth’

When contacted, Rafizi said the police’s move to pass the matter to MACC appears to be a repeat of the National Feedlot Corporation scandal.

azlan “If you remember exactly the response in the NFC scandal, MACC said they could not do anything and they passed it to the CCID, then the police said there was no case,” he said.

Despite insisting that it had no jurisdiction, the MACC later went on to raid NFC’s office and the police had charged NFC chairperson Mohamad Ismail Salleh with two counts of criminal breach of trust and violating the Companies Act, four months after the scandal broke.

Rafizi added that the tender process was a complicated and there could still be room for the police to scrutinise the matter.

“Don’t worry about Najib, they (police) don’t have to touch the prime minister, let the politicians handle that,” he said.

He added that even if the police pushes its responsibilities to MACC, PKR will bring the matter to be the court of public opinion as the matter was of public interest.

Najib had on Friday during the Umno supreme council meeting denied any wrongdoing with regard to awarding the contract, saying that everything was done properly.

“There is no such thing as improper,” said Najib.

Besides paying Rafizi a visit on June 27, the same day the PKR leader made the revelation, a team of MACC officers had also visited Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd on Friday.

It was reported that a team of MACC officers had paid a visit to the national transportation company which runs the RapidKL buses and also the LRT lines, and Prasarana media affairs manager had described it as “a fact-finding mission” .

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