DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang said today his prediction that the government would deliberately flout parliamentary rules on the issue of RM2.6 billion in Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s personal bank accounts to silence further questions on it has come true.

He said this in reference to his prediction last week that the government may only respond to questions relating to the RM2.6 billion issue on the last day of Parliament, so as to avoid further follow-up queries from MPs to what he expects to be 'unsatisfactory' answers.

This was after Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Azalina Othman refused to answer several questions on the RM2.6 billion on Oct 19, stating that she will only do so at one go, on a later date.

Azalina ( photo ) said today the Prime Minister's Department would answer questions relating to the RM2.6 billion on the last day of the current sitting of Parliament, insisting that there was nothing in Parliament's rules that prevented it from doing so.

Lim said in a statement: "The Standing Orders do not empower a minister to avoid or evade an answer, and even more important, it has become the parliamentary tradition and convention in Malaysia, for 56 years from 1959 to 2015, for a minister to answer a question when asked, and not to push it to a later date or to the very last day of a parliamentary meeting.

"It is shocking that at a time when the speaker is talking about parliamentary reforms to make Parliament more effective and contemporaneous, we are seeing ministers doing the very opposite – making Parliament even less competent and efficient in holding the executive to parliamentary account.

"Why is Najib’s RM2.6 billion ‘donation’ causing such havoc in the whole system of governance, not only in the cabinet and executive, and the various government agencies, but now in Parliament as well?"

Systemic violation of traditions

Lim also urged BN lawmakers who have the 'conscience and courage' to join the opposition in opposing what he described as a 'systemic violation of parliamentary traditions and rights'.

In a separate statement, Lim also urged Dewan Rakyat speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia to show his seriousness in his professed move to reform Parliament by urging newly-appointed Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairperson Hasan Arifin to expedite the resumption of the probe into 1MDB.

"Anyone would have thought that the first item of business of the reconstituted PAC under a new chairperson this Monday would be to immediately follow up on the PAC schedule in its 1MDB investigations, such as calling up the present and past 1MDB chief executive officers to appear before the PAC to testify on 1MDB.

"But this has not been the case, for no date had been fixed for resuming the PAC investigation into 1MDB that was interrupted three months ago.

"As Pandikar is talking about upholding the integrity of Parliament, shouldn’t he impress on Hasan and the PAC on the importance of PAC presenting its report on 1MDB to allow MPs to debate the issue before the end of the current meeting of Parliament on Dec 3?" Lim said.