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PKR lawmaker opposes making CEP report secret
Published:  Sep 3, 2018 10:18 AM
Updated: 4:01 AM

Pakatan Harapan's Kapar MP Abdullah Sani Abdul Hamid has disagreed with Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's decision to not make public the final report by the Council of Eminent Persons (CEP).

There is no reason for doing that as Malaysians deserve to know details of the report, and what the CEP has unearthed after summoning so many people within 100 days, he said.

"We deserve to know the details of the report,” Abdullah Sani was quoted as saying in an interview with the Malay Mail yesterday.

“What did you find out within 100 days? What do you have to show for it? What are the findings? Those who you recommended to be axed, why the recommendation? What did they do wrong?

“There must be an explanation to everything,” the PKR central leadership council member added.

On Aug 27, Mahathir declared that the report of the Council of Eminent Persons will not be disclosed to the public; a move backed by CEP member Jomo Kwame Sundaram due to the report’s 'sensitive' nature.

The formation of the five-member CEP on May 12 was among Mahathir's first tasks as prime minister.

Led by Mahathir’s confidante Daim Zainuddin, the CEP is a powerful body that interviewed some 350 people from 200 organisations – many of whom are from the government or GLCs – to help formulate a report on economic and financial policies for the prime minister.

The report was submitted 100 days after the CEP was formed.

Mahathir had said that the report might only be viewed by those in the government to assist them in making their decisions and that its contents are the “government’s business”.

Abdullah Sani believes that keeping the report a secret goes against Harapan’s promise of transparency.

“Everything should be publicly scrutinised; do not turn this country in a ‘cowboy’ country,” he said.

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