'Where's the Eurocopter report?' PAC chief flayed

The temperature in the Dewan Rakyat rose a couple of notches when DAP leader Lim Kit Siang trained his guns on Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chief Azmi Khalid.

Apart from calling for his resignation, Lim also challenged Azmi to explain the PAC's findings on the controversial Eurocopter deal outside the House.

Earlier, Lim had asked when the PAC would furnish its report on the RM1.6 billion deal to Parliament in order for the matter to be debated.

According to the Ipoh Timur MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Najib Abdul Razak announced in his winding-up speech on Nov 4 that a report would be tabled immediately.

He then proceeded to flay the PAC chairperson over the matter.

"Azmi made a statement (to release the report). This is a big cronyism and corruption problem (which must be addressed) in order to save our economy and the PAC chairman cannot even answer this because he would run away.

"He should resign as PAC chairman. Where is the Eurocopter report? Irresponsible and unaccountable as chairman. You do not even deserve to be chairman," he thundered, paving the way for a shouting match between Barisan Nasional and opposition parliamentarians.

Azmi (BN-Padang Besar) retaliated and described Lim as "ignorant" in matters of economy management.

Deputy Speaker Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar was forced to intervene and decided to end the matter as it was nearing lunch break.

However, Lim refused to back down and challenged Azmi to meet him outside the House to explain the issue.

On Nov 3, Azmi revealed that PAC did not find any procedural abuse in the Eurocopter tender process.

However, the powerful committee was concerned that there was no physical examination on the 12 Eurocopter helicopters which the government wanted to purchase.

Report Being Prepared

Met by reporters later, Lim said Azmi should have not stood up to defend himself because the report had not been tabled.

He said the report should be tabled in the next few days as the "result was already announced by the Finance Ministry on Nov 4".

"Now it is already coming to a week. There should be a debate on the report once it is tabled and the PAC chairman should use his influence to ask for an agreement from the ministry to request a debate.

"And that is the time he can defend and stand up on his conduct and not stand up in this irregular and improper way. I hope he will speed up the report in the next few days," he added.

Lim also pointed out that every PAC member would have the right to have a say in the report as it should be signed by each member and not by the chairman alone.

"The chairman should not unilaterally and arbitrarily claim the PAC findings without the endorsement by the members," he said.

Azmi, who accepted the challenge to explain the matter outside the House, said: "I have instructed (the committee) to speed up the preparation of the report and it has been promised that it will be ready in the next few days."

The report, he added, would be prepared in verbatim format and a summary of the findings would also be included and tabled in Parliament.

"I am not here to debate with YB Ipoh Timur but whatever it is, we'll just wait for the report to be released. And YB could bring anything up regarding the issue after it is released, not before," he said with Lim standing beside him.

Responding, Lim said it was not right to 'jump the gun' on the matter.

"We should have waited for the report to be tabled first instead of just jumping the gun. However, we hope the PAC chairman will use his influence to speed up the report to be tabled in the Parliament," he added.