This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on May 27, 2016.

KUALA LUMPUR: An emergency motion by opposition leader Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail to seek the Dewan Rakyat to urge Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to declassify the report by the auditor-general (AG) on 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) has been rejected by Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia.

Wan Azizah said she had filed the motion on Tuesday.

“I regret the rejection of such an important motion [which] involves public interest,” Wan Azizah told a news conference yesterday. The motion was related to a motion she had tabled on April 28 to seek the House to debate the report tabled by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

“Until today, the PAC report and official answers from the government in Dewan Rakyat have failed to provide answers to the 1MDB scandal. Worse still is the attempt to cover up the information through classification of the auditor-general’s report,” Wan Azizah said.

She said the government, especially the prime minister, should be held responsible for whatever weaknesses and abuses that occured in 1MDB, which had involved billions of ringgit of public funds and had tarnished the good name of the country in the eyes of the global community.

“Therefore, I call upon the government to answer all questions raised through the presentation of a White Paper on 1MDB in Parliament,” she added.

In his reply rejecting Wan Azizah’s motion yesterday, Pandikar said: “I have studied the matter raised by Yang Berhormat Datuk Seri and found that the motion brought forward is a motion that needs the consent of the House.”