> PM and PAC to look at Big Deals

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he will meet with Defence Ministry secretary-general Abu Bakar Abdullah this afternoon to seek clarification on the helicopter deal which has run into controversy.

"I will meet with him today to discuss about this and then I will let you know," Abdullah, who is also defence minister, told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur.

The issue was first highlighted in a letter dated Oc 7 addressed to former defence minister Najib Abdul Razak, who is also deputy prime minister and finance minister.

In the five-page letter, Mentari Services Sdn Bhd chairperson Capt (rtd) Zahar Hashim suggested that the tender process, initiated during Najib's tenure, could have been a "gimmick" since the ministry appeared to favour one company.

 

Zahar also accused Najib (right) of providing the prime minister, who took over the defence portfolio on Sept 17, with an “inaccurate” report pertaining to the contract.

He said the government could have purchased the same number of helicopters from the firm he represents, and save almost RM1.5 billion.

In Parliament yesterday, Najib said he will give the Dewan Rakyat a detailed explanation soon on questions raised over the matter. 

Meanwhile, The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will be conducting inquiries into a number of recent controversial deals involving both the public and private sector, including the acquisition of Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII) by Maybank, the Eurocopter deal and the broadband project awarded to Telekom Malaysia.

Its chairman Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid told reporters today that the committee will soon be calling in the relevant parties to understand their rationale behind the decisions.

He said that the committee had yet to fix a specific date to begin their inquiries.

Asked if the committee would call in the Deputy Prime Minister to assist in their inquiries, Azmi smiled and said: “We will see first. We don’t want to jump the gun.”

Petaling Jaya Utara parliamentarian Tony Pua, who is also a member of the PAC, later explained that the inquiries would take some time.

But he was optimistic that the matters would be dealt with by next month or “definitely by year end”.

“There are too many issues to discuss. The presentation for Maybank itself will take up to one hour. then the panel will want to ask questions.

“Each could easily take up half a day and that doesn’t take into account the issues that have already been planned ahead,” he elaborated.

However, he said the chairman was working hard to arrange for follow-up meetings on a weekly basis.

Today’s PAC meeting which lasted three hours also discussed other matters of national security.

Mostly, it focused on immigration issues, specifically on measures to control the influx of illegal immigrants and the approval of visas-on-arrival.

Pua noted that since the government has tightened the approval for visas-on-arrival, there has been a significant drop in the number of foreigners abusing the method to enter Malaysia.

However, he added, the committee has yet to completely resolve the issue of illegal immigrants.

The committee urged the immigration department to implement the biometrics system at all entry points into the country. Azmi said the fingerprint scanning system would been an effective and immediate method to reduce the influx of the illegals.

“Even though the cost is high, the social cost would be greatly reduced,” Azmi said - Malaysiakini and The Malaysian Insider.