No fear - Rafizi to Puad after warned of charges for critiquing govt

Summary

• Ex-economy minister Rafizi Ramli dismisses warnings from Umno’s Puad Zarkashi about potential legal consequences for criticising the government.

• He points out that his previous charges came during the BN administration, when Puad held a senior government position.

• The Pandan MP also brands Puad an attention-seeker who has had limited political success.

Former economy minister Rafizi Ramli said he fears nothing, after a veiled warning by Umno’s Puad Zarkashi, cautioning the former of possible legal implications for criticising the government.

Puad, who is an Umno supreme council member, yesterday warned the Pandan MP that ongoing criticism of the government could lead to cases filed against him.

Taking to Facebook, Rafizi sarcastically responded to the warning by reminding him that the only time he was charged was during the BN federal administration.

“If I were afraid of facing charges, I wouldn’t have resigned from my position. I would have accepted whatever is required of me. If you had told me to keep quiet, I would’ve kept quiet. Tell me to jump, I’ll jump.

“When Puad was the director-general of the Special Affairs Department (Jasa), it was the then-government that dragged me to court with 14 cases, including being sentenced to prison for three years,” he said.

Rafizi (above, left) was charged in 2012 under Section 97 of the Banking and Financial Institutions Act (Bafia), together with then-Public Bank clerk, Johari Mohmad, for leaking banking data from the National Feedlot Corporation Sdn Bhd.

The duo were found guilty in 2018 and sentenced to jail for 30 months.

In 2019, the Shah Alam High Court set aside convictions against Rafizi, who was then a PKR vice-president, and Johari. Both men were acquitted and discharged from their jail sentence.

Rafizi was also sentenced to 18 months in jail in 2016 after being found guilty of breaching the Official Secrets Act (OSA) when exposing the 1MDB audit report. However, he was eventually let off with a two-year good behaviour bond of RM10,000 by the Court of Appeal.

In his post today, Rafizi also added that throughout his time as minister, he never abused his power for procurement matters by skipping due processes or the necessary authorities.

“Even for matters within my jurisdiction, such as approving the bumiputera land acquisition policy worth more than RM20 million, I established a task force to make decisions, and did not decide anything on my own,” he said.

‘Puad the attention-seeker’

Rafizi also dismissed Puad as a mere attention-seeker.

“Fortunately, PKR/Harapan entered the 2022 Johor state election in a rather glum state. At least we won the Rengit seat.

“Despite Puad’s decades of involvement in politics and Umno since the 1990s, he’s only won once in Parliament and once in the state assembly.

“So when Puad offers advice, supposedly out of fear that I might go to prison, I simply ignore it.

“I regard this as attention-seeking advice, so that the media will quote his name and turn it into news. If he had to rely on his other political efforts, he’d probably struggle to make headlines,” Rafizi added.

Puad resigned from Jasa - the propaganda arm of the government - in 2018. The department has since been rebranded to the Community Communications Department (Jkom).

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