Lim Kit Siang has volunteered to speak at Umno and BN's roadshow on the special task force probing Bank Negara's foreign exchange trading losses in the 1990s.

"(Umno information chief) Annuar Musa should inform me in the next 48 hours whether I have to re-schedule my programmes from Feb 25 onwards in order to speak at the launch-off of the Umno and BN's roadshow this Saturday," said the DAP veteran in a statement.

Yesterday, Annuar announced that the roadshow would be organised following criticism on the need for the task force and why the 1MDB was not given the same treatment.

Annuar claimed that Bank Negara's disastrous forex loses were not fully investigated before although it involved a large sum of money.

"The foreign exchange scandal involved government funds, unlike 1MDB where the government only has RM1 million start-up capital invested.

"1MDB as an entity has also gone through investigations. Besides, it is only a company," he had said.

The first stop for the roadshow would be at Hulu Selangor this Saturday.

Lim had spoken extensively about Bank Negara's forex losses and had told Parliament in 1994, when he was the opposition leader, that there was a need for a Royal Commission of Inquiry to probe the matter.

He repeated this call in 2004 when Nor Mohamed Yakcop was appointed Finance Minister II under the Abdullah Ahmad Badawi administration. Nor Mohamed was a key figure in Bank Negara when the losses were incurred.

Meanwhile, Lim urged de facto law minister Azalina Othman to respond to his offer to help the special task force on the forex scandal, on condition that the scope of the probe be expanded.

"I am prepared to serve on a public probe into Bank Negara forex losses, but the scope of investigations should be expanded to cover the Bank Bumiputera Finance and 1MDB scandals," he said.

He said 1MDB must be part of the probe because the company's actions had led to the country being regarded as a kleptocracy and also tarnished the reputation of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

He expressed hope that Azalina would nominate him as a member of the special task force when cabinet meets on Wednesday and propose that the scope of the task force be expanded.

Previously, Azalina had challenged Lim to support the task force on grounds that he had been vocal about the subject in 1993 and 1994 in Parliament.