SELCAT Selangor Menteri Besar Abdul Khalid Ibrahim denied today that he gave the order to the Selangor State Development Corporation (PKNS) to drop Azmin Ali from its board of directors and to sack 20 contract workers as well earlier this year.

Backing Azmin's case in a public hearing committee (SELCAT), Khalid said Azmin could not be rightfully dropped until all documents and statements made by PKNS, apparently without approval by the chairperson and its board of directors, were fully looked into.

This included contradictory statements made in January by the PKNS works secretary and the Selangor state secretary about Azmin's status.

“All aspects will be taken into account in this internal investigation. Because of that, Azmin's contract termination is still suspended,” Khalid said in a press statement on what he told SELCAT at its hearing today.

Selangor exco did not discuss ouster

Khalid also said he could not give a deadline as the investigations, being undertaken by Selangor state secretary Mohamed Khusrin, must remain independent from him.

He said he had also testified that it was not the Selangor state executive committee that had decided, or even discussed, Azmin's controversial ouster from PKNS.

Azmin who is also PKR's deputy president and Bukit Antarabangsa assemblyperson, is widely seen to be Khalid's chief political rival within PKR.

However, in his testimony, Azmin Ali maintained that his sacking was affirmed by the Selangor state exco as it was contained in the minutes of a meeting held on Nov 13, 2013.

"I was fired from PKNS," he insisted, referring to the minutes that also said Menteri Besar Khalid asked the state exco to "observe that Azmin Ali has returned the facilities provided to him as a board director".

This referred to Azmin’s official car, a Honda CRV, which was returned to PKNS when Parliament was disbanded for GE13 on April 4 last year.

Azmin, who is also the MP for Gombak,  added that the Nov 13 exco meeting had further talked about hiring a replacement board member and therefore, it was very clear that he had been dropped.

On another matter, SELCAT was told that the termination of 20 PKNS contract workers could not be directly attributed to Khalid.

Khalid said this decision was made by acting PKNS general manager Azlan Alfiah, after a survey found that this was necessary to save operations costs.

However, Khalid conceded that he did order PKNS to act quickly to cut costs, after opposition BN representatives pointed out in 2011 that PKNS had overpaid its media managers, speech writers and marketing directors.

The sacking caused an uproar and allegations that there were sinister motives involved.

The SELCAT hearing is chaired by state assembly speaker Hannah Yeoh, with four Pakatan Rakyat assemblypersons and a BN representative as its members.

They are deputy speaker Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad (Sri Setia) Saari Sungib (Hulu Kelang), Dr Rani Osman (Meru),  Ng Sue Lim (Sekinchan) and BN assemblyperson Sulaiman Razak (Permatang).