COMMENT | The wife of the caretaker prime minister Rosmah Mansor yesterday revealed that one of the reasons she started the Permata programme for children was because she wanted to teach them to be respectful of their elders, parents and teachers, and singled out the PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar as a person lacking such qualities.

I leave it to Nurul Izzah to respond, but Rosmah has only highlighted the basic flaw and failure of the Malaysian education system when the Najib Abdul Razak himself has not been sufficiently imbued with the same basic moral and religious values she speaks of.

The two notorious ‘achievements’ of Najib are firstly, to enact the world’s first anti-fake news law – not to combat lies, fake news and false information, but to censor exposés about Umno-BN abuses of power and corruption, in particular the international multi-billion 1MDB money-laundering scandal; and secondly, giving Malaysia the international infamy and ignominy of a global kleptocracy.

If every Malaysian had been properly brought up by our educational system to have the basic moral and religious values of not telling lies and not to steal the property of others, these two notorious events would not have occurred in Malaysia at all.

On March 25, I emailed Najib to fix a public event any place, any day, anytime, to show me where in the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on 1MDB, said he was absolved of any wrongdoing in the 1MDB scandal.

Some four weeks have passed, and I have not received any reply from Najib. This is most surprising, as I am offering him an opportunity to put me to public shame by reading out the chapter and verse in the PAC report on the 1MDB scandal where the PAC absolved him of any wrongdoing in the 1MDB scandal.

Yesterday, I renewed my offer to Najib to name the place, date and time for me to attend a public event and suffer the public humiliation when he reads out from the report.

The absolute silence from Najib in the past four weeks to my email and renewal of my challenge is the latest proof that our education system has failed to bring up a caretaker prime minister who is moored enough in moral and religious teachings to not tell lies or untruths, nor to be part of a major international corruption racket.

Horror of horrors, he has committed another basic moral and religious teaching that one should not steal – to the extent that Malaysia is now regarded worldwide as a global kleptocracy.

What has Najib got to say about these developments?

LIM KIT SIANG is DAP parliamentary leader and incumbent Gelang Patah MP.

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