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Call for a total shake-up of the  civil service support to the front-bench in Parliament to end the scandal of the Prime Minister, Ministers,  Deputy Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries making  mistakes by giving wrong and inaccurate information  in their speeches and answers in Parliament which could end up in their being referred to the Committee of Privileges like Karpal Singh   Media Statement (2) - at the funeral of  former DAP stalwart, Peter Paul Dason, three-term MP and two-term Penang State Assemblyman by Lim Kit Siang (Penang, Saturday): There has recently  been a shocking drop in standards of civil service support to the front-bench in Parliament, causing  the Prime Minister, Ministers,  Deputy Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries  to make mistakes in their speeches and answers in Parliament which could end up in their being referred to the Committee of Privileges like DAP MP for Bukit Glugor  Karpal Singh.  I will just give the following examples:  In May, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi gave  a wrong and inaccurate reply to the DAP MP for Seputeh, Teresa Kok, claiming that jailed former deputy prime minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, had not lodged a police report in 1999 pertaining to the Perwaja Steel scandal. In the past week, Parliament was given three versions on the status of the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) investigations into my two ACA reports in 1997 and 2002 against the then MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Ling Liong Sik and query whether it was appropriate for him to be made a “Tun” when his case was still under ACA investigation. My first ACA report  in June 1997 was   how Ling Hee Leong, son of Liong Sik, could at the age of 27 embark on corporate acquisitions exceeding RM1.2 billion in a matter of months and whether there had been improper use and influence of his father’s political and Ministerial position.  My second ACA  report arose from Soh Chee Wen’s Malaysiakini interview in May 2002 where Soh said that  Liong Sik had asked him not to “implicate” Liong Sik in the ACA investigations into my 1997 report - an offence in trying to withhold vital information in  a criminal investigation. The three versions relate to my second report. On Tuesday, the Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk M. Kayveas in his reply  to my question said the ACA had completed its investigations and had referred its papers to the Attorney-General. The next day (Wednesday), Kayveas corrected himself and said that the matter had not been referred to the Attorney-General but was still with the Legal Division of the ACA. However, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Finance Ministry, Datuk Helmi Yahya told Parliament later the same day that both my ACA reports against Liong Sik had been resolved. Either Kayveas or Helmi had told Parliament an untruth.   The conundrum of the three versions on the status of my ACA report against Liong Sik deepened  when the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Mustapha Mohamad told Parliament on Thursday that the ACA had cleared Liong Sik for the conferment of the award of “Tun” as my second report to the ACA did not directly implicate Liong Sik – which was clearly wrong and inaccurate as I myself lodged the second ACA report and the subject was Liong Sik and not Soh Chee Wen!  Mustapha had been misled into telling an untruth in Parliament.   On Wednesday, Helmi told Parliament that the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli (JHEOA)  was never involved in any manner in the scandal of the “Orang Asli millionaires living in poverty” where the beneficiaries of  a RM38 million court award in 1997 for the Linggiu Valley Orang Asli in Johore were not the 52 affected Orang Asli families, but the lawyers who collected over RM10 million and the middleman who got RM2.2 million.  On Thursday, Helmi agreed with me that he had given wrong and inaccurate information as the JHOEA Director-General was appointed by the court as one of the trustees for the Linggiu Valley Orang Asli Trust for RM22 million in 2000, raising questions about failure of the JHOEA to discharge its mandate to  protect the rights and interests of the Orang Asli.   The contradictions in the speeches and replies by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Nazri Aziz, his colleague Datuk Mustapha Mohamad and Kayveas about the outcome of the “18 high-profile corruption cases”, which appeared to have suddenly disappeared into thin air in the past five months. Karpal has been referred to the Committee of Privileges because he had cited the wrong legislation when raising the issue as to whether Members of Parliament had to raise their right hand during the oath-taking ceremony on May 17, referring to the Statutory Declaration Act 1960 when it should be the Oaths and Affirmation Act 1949 – a mistake  which Karpal had subsequently conceded. If making a statement which is wrong or inaccurate is such a heinous parliamentary offence as to warrant reference to the Committee of Privileges, then the Prime Minister, the two Ministers in the Prime Minister’s Department, Mustapha and Nazri, Deputy Minister Kayveas and Parliamentary Secretary (Finance) Helmi should all be referred to the Committee of Privileges as the wrong and inaccurate information which they had given in Parliament are even more serious than in Karpal’s case. DAP never suggested that the Prime Minister, Nazri, Mustapha, Kayveas and Helmi should be referred to the Committee of Privileges, as this would be a colossal waste of time.  Parliamentarians, including Ministers, are not saints and can make mistakes. Similarly, there can be no reason why Karpal should be referred to the Committee of Privileges at all for a mistake which he had acknowledged for citing the wrong legislation. What is of paramount importance is to raise parliamentary standards to ensure that the Prime Minister, Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries do not continue to give wrong and inaccurate information in their parliamentary speeches and replies. There should be  an immediate and  full  shake-up of the civil service support system for the government in Parliament to ensure that the highest standards of professionalism is maintained – as the scandal of the Prime Minister, Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries giving wrong and inaccurate information in Parliament, which was quite unheard-of in previous Parliaments, should not continue as it would reflect most adversely on the Abdullah premiership. (17/7/2004) * Lim Kit Siang, Parliamentary Opposition Leader, Member of Parliament for Ipoh Timor & DAP National Chairman