11 November 2014
Today in Parliament, PKR MPs had our meeting to plan ahead issues to be raised. Anwar chaired the meeting and advised us to prepare for all eventualities. We also sorted out the order of debate.
I am all set to debate tomorrow on the Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities. This ministry has a relatively small budget of RM1.7 billion but I will be highlighting issues of misguided allocations.
12 November 2014
Deputy Education Minister Mary Yap is exactly like the other Deputy Education Minister Kamalanathan.
They just cannot answer any unprepared questions in Parliament.
Last month Kamalanathan gave a one-sentence reply. He said, the allegation is not true and then he just sat down.
This morning Mary Yap in reply to a question from YB Lim Guan Eng, she did slightly better. She replied in two sentences, thank you for the question, we will study the matter. Then she sat down.
The Dewan broke into laughter and Guan Eng can be seen shaking his head at the unbelievable reply from a minister.
Ahmad Maslan has inadvertently broken the biggest story ever about Malaysian government finances.
He has said that letters of support (LOS) are actually guarantees from the government BUT it is not captured by Bank Negara as a contingent liability of the govt. Currently contingent liability of govt is about RM250 billion. So how many LOS are out there? Just how big is the actual contingent liability?
13 November 2014
Today in Parliament, Anwar gave a press statement that all PKR MPs are ready to debate on 1MDB. He challenged Najib to allow Parliament to do so.
As you may know, I have over the last year put in about 10 questions on 1MDB. I have never received a single satisfactory answer and to my questions on Jho Low, these were rejected outright by Parliament.
There is a mood in the halls of Parliament that a deep panic has set in amongst the Najib camp. Hence the complete shutdown on 1MDB. Chua Tee Yong evaded the issue like the plague. Even the Speaker is at a loss what to do regarding Rafizi’s petition against Ahmad Maslan on 1MDB. Also another very strange but noticeable phenomenon is that not one single BN backbencher has ventured to defend 1MDB. With the UMNO meeting at end of November, will 1MDB be Najib’s Waterloo?