A year has passed since the MH370 tragedy which till today is shrouded in mystery. On its part, the Malaysian federal government’s refusal to divulge any investigation reports on the matter is not helping both the victims’ families and the members of the public to find closure.
It is worthy to note that the Australian Parliament through Prime Minister Tony Abbot moved a motion to debate MH370 on 5 March 2015 with Standing Order even suspended to allow House Opposition Bill Shorten equal time to the Prime Minister to respond to the PM’s motion on MH370:
As such when our Parliment convenes next week, I urge the Prime Minister to do the following to show his commitment towards truth, justice and closure for MH370.
- The PM has to answer if there was any audit conducted on the tragedy especially in regards to the government Standard Operating Procedures, given the reported negligences, for example, passengers with stolen passports on passengers manifest, discrepancies in the cargoes manifest, the lack of response after the lost of communication with MH370 and the lack of response after military radar detected the so-called unidentified flying object moments after MH370 went off communication etc.
- Up till today, a year later, no exhaustive report has been submitted to the Malaysian public by all the authorities involved, not the Cabinet, DCA, the airforce or even the Joint Investigation Team.
- There was a special Parliamentary sitting to debate the MH17 tragedy last year but why there is no similar sitting for MH370? Both are matters of grave national concern and affects hundreds of lives, both the victims and their families and adversely affects our country’s image as well as the economy. It is only right that Parliament be instructed to discuss this matter urgently this sitting.
- Finally, the govt should heed the Opposition’s call to immediately establish a bipartisan Parliamentary Select Committee, chaired by an Opposition Member of Parliament to further conduct an investigation on the failures and non-compliances (based on expert reports submitted) which led to the crisis to shed further light on Mh370 and to give justice to the victims and their families. A government white paper must then be published on this matter.
I have in the Parliament called for a post mortem report to be tabled but no such report has been forthcoming. The PM should table such report this sitting.
Especially of concern is the police investigation notably on pilot Captain Zahrie Shah given that he has been implicated on numerous occasions as “chief suspect” by the police and there were even reports implicating his family as well as his connection to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. The government must provide answers for all these allegations so as to clear any doubt on the matter and most importantly to clear the name of the pilot and his family if he was innocent.
I have especially called for this to be done before any attempt to “go shopping” for new defence equipment using the crisis as an excuse, as indicated by the government after the tragedy.
Finally I call on all Malaysians to continue to pray for victims and families of MH370 as we remember this tragedy which continues to bring heartache and tears to us even a year later.