Some may have pointed out the irony of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak pushing for political funding reforms amid his own controversy, where RM2.6 billion was deposited into his personal bank accounts.

But Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Paul Low said he is not interested in playing blame games.

He said this in response to former deputy minister Saifuddin Abdullah who had described the premier’s position as someone who sets up a committee on planting trees after ravaging the forest.

Using the same analogy, Low said he was he was more concerned about replanting the forest rather than finding out who chopped down all the trees.

"As far as I am concerned, I build the forest up, I do the replanting. We need this forest, which is the political institution. It is my main concern.

"If I were to be concerned on who destroyed the environment, who chopped the trees, I'll be on the blame game and never quite know whether I should stop or start," he said.

Saifuddin ( photo ), in a Facebook posting,had written: "U dah tebas hutan balak sampai pupus. kenyang, lepas tu u cadang tubuh jawatankuasa bincang alam sekitar & program menanam pokok?"

("You cut down the entire forest, have sated yourself, and now you propose a committee to discuss the environment and programmes to plant trees?")

Low, who is former Transparency International Malaysia president (TI-M), claimed that he was the one who first proposed the idea of reforms in political financing, rather than PM himself. 

He said that he had called for this when he was still with civil society, and after he joined the government.

"I actually pushed for it first thing when I first joined government two years ago, if you look at my Key Performance Index (KPI), it includes political financing," he added.

Bar Council snub

Low disclosed he is planning to set up a committee to study this issue and it will be led by Low himself. It could be set up as soon as in a fortnight’s time and will be between 15 to 20 members, including representatives from political parties as well as from civil society.

Asked if electoral watchdog Bersih 2.0 would be invited to be part of the committee, Low said they were not on the list because of their "diversity of views".

"But they probably can be consulted as part of the interest group - there is only a certain number of NGOs that I can take," he said. 

He said he wanted to take this opportunity to make a change, rather than to wait till everything was right, in which case it might never happen.

Despite the Bar Council snub to sit on the political funding panel, Low said invitation will still be sent to them.

DAP Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming ( photo ), who was also at the forum, said the committee should focus on two issues, namely political spending and assets declaration.

"The PM has recently announced that allocations for BN MPs will be increased to RM5 million from RM1 million. I think this needs to be addressed, because I think this is unfair.

"Also, Ideas has published the very good brief on declaration of assets by political leaders in Malaysia while the Penang government have asked all its exco members to declare their assets openly

“I hope this can be one of the aspects of political financing because it talks about transparency and fairness, " he said.

He also asked Low at the forum if DAP would be invited to sit on the panel  to which Low gave his assurance.