Dewan Rakyat Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia has dismissed former Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chief Nur Jazlan Mohamed's claim that leaks of information about 1MDB came from Parliament staff.

Yesterday, Nur Jazlan, who is now deputy home minister, urged Pandikar to investigate after claiming the leak did not come from PAC, which has been investigating 1MDB, but from Parliament staff.

"Why don't you ask him? That is his statement. How do I know where the leak came from?

"How can I probe? This is PAC's business. I don't know if there was a leak or not," Pandikar said when asked by reporters today.

The leak was alleged by 1MDB which implicated the PAC and which now, in turn, has implicated the staff of Parliament.

This came after The Wall Street Journal in its Sept 9 report cited a 'parliamentary committee probing 1MDB' and its 'transcript of the proceedings', in claiming that US$1.4 billion paid by 1MDB to Abu Dhabi-based International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) had gone missing.

Pandikar added that it was not his prerogative to investigate parliamentary staff and cut short questions from reporters.

However, he accused MPs who sat on the PAC of revealing information prior to their official report, saying that they did this as they had a political agenda.

"Due to their political aganda, they put the report outside," he said.

Pandikar said this was a breach of the Section 85 of the parliamentary standing order, which says no information, either written or verbal, can be relayed to a third party.

The august house didn't draft the particular provision for pleasure, but to ensure fairness to the party that was investigated by the committee, so that they will not be tried by social media before the report is concluded, he said.

Pandikar: Ask me good questions

Pandikar was speaking to the press on the sidelines of the closing ceremony for the 36th Asean Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (Aipa) in Kuala Lumpur.

Citing PAC’s hearing into the Apco Worldwide fiasco, which witnessed four MPs being suspended, he warned action could be taken against them.

In 2010, three opposition MPs – PKR Subang MP R Sivarasa, Gombak MP Azmin Ali, and the late DAP lawmaker Karpal Singh – were suspended for six months for contempt for revealing the proceedings of the Rights and Privileges Committee on former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s Apco claims.

Anwar said Apco Worldwide was behind both the 1Malaysia and One Israel concepts.

Pandikar, who abruptly walked off from the media conference, then came back and called on members of the media and politicians to act with responsibility.

“This is all about the PAC nonsense again? Ask me good questions so that I can give you good answers. Do not embarrass all the politicians,” he said when journalists asked him, first of all, to respond to Nur Jazlan’s comment.

He also dismissed 1MDB’s call for DAP lawmaker Tony Pua to resign from PAC pending an investigation against him by the police in connection with the 1MDB scandal.

“This is its (1MDB’s) opinion, not my opinion. Why don’t you ask them? Don’t ask me. It’s not fair to me,” Pandikar said.

More news

Al Jazeera journo deported over Altantuya murder story

'PM does not know Altantuya', PMO repeats to Al Jazeera

MP: Vote down Budget if speaker disallows no-confidence motion

Kit Siang: Red shirts rally for pro-Najib Malays

Gov't to amended directive to prevent leak of secrets

PKR bitten many times, but still not shy

PAS in Pakatan 2.0 - back to square one

Pua: Why 1MDB more interested to have me removed?

Malacca Umno denies mobilising members for ‘red shirt’ rally

Expect two new coalitions, PKR-PAS and DAP-Amanah

Sea of difference between PM’s donation and Bersih’s

PM, did Maria put RM2m in her bank account?