COMMENT More should be done to curb corruption, yet I wonder how Senator Paul Low could say that he is not sleeping on the job .

As the minister in charge of integrity, has he even challenged Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to come clean on a number of allegations involving the 1MDB and Scorpene scandals?

With the latest truth coming out from at least two Umno leaders confirming that RM1.5 billion was spent during the last general election, and a third Umno leader saying that the money did not come from the political donation of RM2.6 billion which went into Najib’s account, it should be obvious enough to Low that corruption of its highest order is happening under his nose.

Will Paul Low raise it in cabinet?

Firstly, as pointed out by PKR vice-president Shamsul Iskandar Md Akin, RM1.5 billion is a whopping 15 to 16 times the amount allowed by the election laws of this country!

My question to Low is, will you be able to instruct the Election Commission (EC) to look into these allegations? Or, at least raise this in the cabinet meeting for it to be discussed and the EC subsequently instructed by Najib to investigate the allegations?

Of course, we expect the EC to revert by saying that this was a hearsay, but if it is true that Najib only returned US$620 million in August 2013 from the amount of US$681 million that he received in March/April 2013, this means he had US$61 million (equivalent to RM213.5 million) to use, which is again more than double of RM94.4 million allowed by EC for a total of 500 state and 222 parliamentary seats, as calculated by Shamsul.

One has to ask intelligent questions - how did Najib splash that huge amount of money in just 40 days before the general election on May 5? Even if he did use it for the election, it is another whopping figure of RM37.5 million in one day for the next 40 days before May 5.

Was the Gangnam Style South Korean celebrity Psy’s performance part of the equation, since we learnt from our dear Jho Low that he was the unofficial election director for Penang and that Psy was his personal friend?

Low has to at least have the integrity to ask these questions during the cabinet meeting. If he cannot get a satisfactory answer, he and others who were handpicked by Najib should just step down instead of whitewashing Najib at every possible opportunity and doing injustice to the whole country.

Can we continue to allow one man to drive the country’s economy down the path of Mexico (debt of US$80 billion in 1982), Russia (debt of US$17 billion in 1998), Argentina ($145 billion in 2001), Iceland (US$85 billion in 2008) and Greece (debt of US$1.7 billion)?

At least one Cassandra Chung has the guts to start an online petition to have Najib’s portrait being removed, and she has my full support. In fact, Najib’s portrait being prominently displayed at the University of Nottingham sends across a wrong message to young Nottingham graduates, that with some power, people can get away with corruption of the highest order.

At the same time, the university council of Monash University, my alma mater, should also write to Najib to explain the allegations made against him by the international media, and if he fails to provide a satisfactory answer, the university should strip him of the honorary doctorate that was awarded to him in the early 2000s.

STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008.