KUALA LUMPUR: The highly anticipated inquiry of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) into 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) was “deliberately sabotaged”, its deputy chairman Dr Tan Seng Giaw said, after losing key members ahead of this week’s grilling of former and current executives of the debt-ridden state investor.

The bipartisan panel was to have continued its inquiry with former 1MDB chief executive officer (CEO) Datuk Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi in Parliament yesterday morning, before moving on to president and group executive director Arul Kanda Kandasamy today.

Mohd Hazem Abdul Rahman, who served as 1MDB CEO from March 2013 to January 2015, was to appear before the panel tomorrow.

“PAC has been deliberately suspended and we have already anticipated the 1MDB people would not turn up.

“We have anticipated the whole thing to be deliberately sabotaged,” Dr Tan told The Malaysian Insider.

Dr Tan refused to elaborate on who had “deliberately sabotaged” the PAC proceedings, but noted that never in the history of the 13-member committee had so many of its members been elevated to the government administration at the same time.

PAC’s outspoken former chairman Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamad and three other members — Datuk Seri Reezal Merican Naina Merican, Datuk Mas Ermieyati Samsudin and Datuk Wilfred Madius Tangau — were promoted to the Cabinet.

Their appointments disqualified them from being PAC members.

Opinion is divided over the interpretation of Parliament’s Standing Orders as to whether the remaining members of the PAC can continue holding hearings.

While Dr Tan and other opposition members of the committee said the PAC can carry on with the proceedings, Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia, in citing Standing Order 77(3), declared that all PAC proceedings, including its ongoing inquiry into 1MDB, had to be temporarily suspended pending the appointment of a new chairman and members.

Pandikar’s view has been disputed by PAC opposition members as well as the Bar Council, which said the committee could still function as it had the required quota, and that Dr Tan as deputy chair could take over the functions of the chairman.

Dr Tan confirmed that the PAC had received an official letter from the Parliament secretary, informing the committee of the postponement of all its inquiry proceedings, including its hearing on 1MDB.

But the committee’s members from the opposition were still meeting yesterday, he said, and he hoped that the remaining members from Barisan Nasional would also turn up.

The latest development marks the second time that Shahrol and Arul Kanda have escaped the PAC, after they skipped a scheduled hearing on May 26, citing work overseas.

However, questions were raised when Arul Kanda met Barisan Nasional Backbenchers Club president Tan Sri Shahrir Samad on the night of May 27 at a hotel near KL Sentral in Kuala Lumpur, in a meeting that lasted till early morning.

Arul Kanda told The Malaysian Insider then that there was nothing wrong with meeting the veteran Johor Baru federal lawmaker.

“Yes, I met with Shahrir, but that was on Wednesday. I wasn’t available for the PAC hearing as I was only back in the country on Tuesday night.

“I’ve got nothing to hide,” Arul Kanda told The Malaysian Insider when contacted in May.

Shahrol, who is currently on 1MDB’s board of directors, was the company’s first CEO from February 2009 to March 2013, while Arul Kanda was appointed in January this year.

Together with Mohd Hazem, they are key witnesses in the PAC’s inquiry into the Finance Ministry-owned 1MDB, which has incurred RM42 billion in debts in just six years of operations.

Besides the top executives, the former chairman of 1MDB’s board of directors, Tan Sri Mohd Bakke Salleh, and ex-board member Tan Sri Azlan Zainol, were also expected to face the PAC on Aug 17.

The duo were said to have quit their posts following unhappiness with the 1MDB management over an alleged US$700 million (RM2.6 billion) meant to be channelled into a joint-venture company set up by 1MDB and PetroSaudi International Ltd. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in digitaledge Daily, on August 5, 2015.