COMMENT Pandikar Amin Mulia should realise that the Parliament represents the people (I repeat, the rakyat of this country), and as the sitting parliamentary speaker, there is no reason for him not to allow any questions on the RM2.6 billion be asked.

I cannot understand what sub judice is Pandikar Amin talking about, when there is, in fact, parliamentary immunity for issues to be raised.

If anything, Pandikar Amin should be fair to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, by giving him an opportunity to give a comprehensive answer to all the allegations being raised against him. Of course, Najib would have to substantiate all his claims with documentary proof before the people’s Parliament.

Questions on the RM2.6 billion will still have to be answered, and until the answer is forthcoming and id convincing enough, it will remain burning on everyone’s mind and heart, for now and for many years to come.

The whole country, in fact, even the international community, is now talking about Najib’s RM2.6 billion, why not the Malaysian Parliament?

Unprecedented

Just yesterday, Luxembourg has joined the bandwagon to launch a judicial inquiry into the 1MDB scandal.

Luxembourg does not just initiate an investigation, if the state prosecutors do not have reasons to believe there was money-laundering involved. Because the amount is in the hundreds of millions of dollars, this is why Luxembourg has joined the other countries including the United States, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore which are on the money trail.

This is unprecedented, as no other prime ministers in this country have gone through such a major scandal that it has attracted both international publicity and federal investigators from foreign countries. Even when former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was accused of burning away public money through failed mega projects, he did not attract such bad vibes as Najib.

Even when I visited a small village in the outback of Sarawak some two years ago, I was already being asked about 1MDB, to which I said I knew nothing about it. That was two years ago. But, now, everything is out in the open, and out of the blue, Pandikar Amin is blocking questions about the RM2.6 billion.

As a citizen and a voter, I want my parliamentarian to continue raising this question until a full explanation is given by Najib. If my parliamentary representative cannot get an answer from the prime minister himself, do you expect him to turn to Bomoh Bujang Lapuk for an answer?

At a time when Malaysians were mourning for the loss of MH370, the king of bomohs had turned Malaysians into a laughing stock? He has made it as if every Malaysian consults a bomoh, and that in Islam, bomohs are “acceptable”. Certainly not for Christians!

People say that when you use bomohs, all the bad vibes will be deflected back to you. This is the law of ‘what goes around comes around’. Perhaps one should ask why Najib is now facing the biggest crisis in his life, when the whole world seems to turn against him.

In fact, when I passed by the toll plaza at the Federal Highway near Subang Jaya yesterday afternoon, I was shocked to learn that from the toll collector that I could not pay cash for the toll. I, and a number of vehicles behind me, were stranded there for a good five minutes.

(Note: According to the toll collector, no cash is allowed. If the driver does not have a Touch & Go card, he can either buy one on the spot or top up the e-purse on the identity card chip. Either way, the concessionaire dictates the terms.)

This market monopoly should never be allowed in the first place, especially when the Malaysian currency is still legal tender for any commercial transactions. This can only happen when even the prime minister has lost control of the way how concessionaires choose to operate.

When the 1MDB scandal was exposed, it has brought shame to us as a nation, and the last thing we want to hear from the parliamentary speaker is when Pandikar Amin tries to talk about sub judice as the basis for rejecting any question on RM2.6 billion.

As the lawmakers of this country, the parliamentarians should be allowed to debate on the issues without being muzzled, for the sake of coming out with better laws.

Malaysians are not stupid

It has nothing to do with the low level of education that “most of us” are deemed to have, but Najib’s own inability to deal with the scandal himself right from the beginning.

So, in a way, Pandikar Amin is correct, in that while he may not allow any questions on RM2.6 billion, he should allow parliamentarians to ask Najib for an explanation about a total of US1 billion that has gone into his account from various sources.

These are fresh allegations not coming out from the ordinary man on the street, or even the opposition, but federal investigators from overseas who have spoken to international media such as the Wall Street Journal ( WSJ ). Some of this information came from press statements issued by their public prosecutors and federal investigation bodies.

Najib has not picked up enough courage to drag either WSJ or the other international media to court, and I think he should place the focus on where his public image is hurt the most.

Although the federal authorities in these countries claim that the investigation at this juncture has not involved Najib yet, it does not necessarily end there, as the money had allegedly gone into his personal accounts and ultimately, as the one who created the sovereign fund and the chairman of the advisory board, as well as being both the prime minister and finance minister, Najib is responsible at least to answer all the raging questions raised within and outside the Parliament.

Nearly everyone I meet is asking the same questions. Within the past ten years, Najib has become the most controversial politician in this country (apart from PAS’ Abdul Hadi Awang), who had set tongues wagging about a number of major scandals, from the murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu to the Scorpene scandal, and from 1MDB loans to the US$1 billion that has allegedly gone into his personal accounts.

Although attempts were made to defend Najib, one reporter, Ross Coulthart, has marred Malaysia’s image as a moderate nation (or he has indeed stated a fact), because of that one brutal murder using military grade C4 explosives to blast Altantuya’s body.

I quote Coulthart’s introduction on 60 Minutes Australia: Dirty Secret , “While politics and skulduggery are frequent bedfellows in most countries, it’s hard to believe the extent of the intrigue and corruption in the Malaysian government.”

If it is just because of one man, we suffer as a nation, we have to throw our support behind the Citizens’ Declaration, instead of allowing this one man to drag more people into the pit along with him. Pandikar Amin should look at the people’s sentiments, not try to block the questions from being asked, unless he, too, is trying to defend the indefensible.

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