KUALA LUMPUR: Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia (pic) has rejected Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli’s request to cite Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Ahmad Maslan to Parliament’s Rights and Privileges committee for misleading the Dewan Rakyat, ruling that Ahmad had no intention to do so.
“In order for a person to be called up to the Rights and Privileges committee, there needs to be three criteria – the facts and arguments are wrong in addition to an intention to mislead parliament. Also if there is no effort to correct the mistakes upon realising it,” Pandikar ruled, Tuesday.
He added that since Ahmad had clarified his stand on the issue, adding to the fact that many questions had to be answered on the spot, it was the Speaker’s view that the deputy minister had no intention of misleading the House.
Ahmad said in Parliament on Tuesday that he had clarified his Nov 6 statement by explaining that instead of there being no Letter of Support (LOS) for a US$3bil (RM9.6bil) bond by 1MDB, he in fact meant that there was no additional Government guarantee for it.
In doing so, Ahmad admitted that he had left out six words pertaining to the answer which was “tidak ada Surat jaminan lain semua (there is no other letter of guarantee)”.
“I left out those six words. I didn’t mean to mislead the Dewan. Sorry and thank you,” he said leading to thumps of approval from Barisan Nasional MPs.
Ahmad was asked by Pandikar to explain himself with regard to the former’s statement over the bond by Government investment arm 1MDB to Parliament.
On Nov 12, Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli had attempted to cite Ahmad Maslan to Parliament’s Rights and Privileges Committee for contempt over his statement in the House that 1MDB did not receive a letter of support (LOS) for the bond.
Rafizi claimed that Ahmad mislead Parliament by giving contradictory statements.
Ahmad later clarified to reporters that the LOS existed but that there was no explicit Government guarantee for the bond.
Ahmad, who is also Pontian MP, explained that the only guarantee was for a RM5.8bil sukuk bond.
In an explicit Government guarantee, if 1MDB defaults on its loan, the Government will have to pay bond holders the sum owed to them. In the case of a letter of support, if 1MDB is unable to pay its loan, the investment arm will have to restructure its assets to pay the loan.
Ahmad, however, stressed that as 1MDB had RM51bil worth of assets, it was more than capable of paying off the US$3bil.
-thestar
