A website reported on Sunday that there was going to be a Cabinet reshuffle and four Ministers will be replaced – the Finance Minister, Tengku Zafrul Aziz; the Minister of Youth and Sports, Ahmad Faizal Azumu; the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Abdul Latiff Ahmad, the Minister for Women, Family and Community Development Rina Harun would be replaced by, among others, Najib Razak as Economic Adviser in the Prime Minister’s Department, Ahmad Maslan as Finance Minister and Shahril Hamdan as Minister for Youth and Sports.
I do not know how true is the report but appointing Najib Razak to any Ministerial position or post would be crossing the “red line” and will jeopardise the confidence-supply-reform (CSR) Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by Prime Minister Ismail Sabri and the four Pakatan Harapan leaders on Sept. 13, 2021.
It is the common practice to forward a list of intended appointments whether to the Cabinet or to any high government position to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) for clearance.
Would the MACC approve the appointment of a convicted corruption criminal as a Cabinet Minister?
Has this anything to do with the two-month conspiracy of silence on the part of the Ismail Sabri and the MACC Chief Commissioner, Azam Baki on the serious allegations of conflict-of-interest which was made public more than two months ago, to the extent that the Malaysian Government and the MACC are prepared to allow their commitment to anti-corruption efforts to be compromised?
Lim Kit Siang
MP for Iskandar Puteri
