This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on October 24, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: The Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) new investigations into graft allegations concerning 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) will start on Oct 29, said its chairman Datuk Seri Dr Ronald Kiandee. He said the probe will start by summoning the first witness, former auditor-general Tan Sri Ambrin Buang.

“Next week, we will be starting our proceedings on the 1MDB matter to reinvestigate the case. We had set the terms of reference,” he told reporters at the Parliament lobby. The committee plans to call some 20 witnesses to testify in the case, he added.

Kiandee also said the PAC’s probe into the “missing” RM19.4 billion goods and services tax (GST) credit returns is expected to be completed by the end of the current Parliament session in December.

“After the last witness, which is the present minister of finance, we will wrap up the case and make a summary and will bring it forward to the public.”

The PAC summoned former treasury secretary-general Tan Sri Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah yesterday to testify in the case. “We have called Tan Sri [Irwan] two times, so we have got whatever testimony needed from him,” said deputy PAC chairman Wong Kah Who.

“We will be calling [Customs director-general Datuk Seri] Subromaniam Tholasy (yesterday afternoon), and [today] it will be former finance minister I, Datuk Seri Najib [Razak]. We will also have another date for the [current] minister of finance and from there, we will conclude the proceedings for the GST case,” Wong said.

He added that the committee had wanted the proceedings of the case to be opened to the public, but certain legal impediments forbade it.

“I know many of us are asking whether we can open the proceedings to the public or the media. In fact, the chairman and I, as well as the committee are of the view that all of the PAC proceedings, apart from those touching on security issues, should be opened.

“But at the moment, we are bound by Order 85 of the Standing Orders that prohibits us from opening the proceedings to the public. In fact, yesterday (Monday) I filed a motion in Parliament for Order 85 to be suspended, so all the PAC proceedings can be opened to the public.

“However, upon further discussions and a further study on the matter with the Speaker of the House, there is another legal impediment — Section 9 of the Parliament Rights and Privileges Act which expressly prohibits any reports from the committee or any evidence adduced in the committee be made public prior to the reports being made,” he added.