Malaysians must make clear their protest and opposition to the shocking - though expected - announcement by Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairperson Hasan Arifin two days ago, that the PAC report into its investigations of the RM55 billion 1MDB scandal will not be ready for tabling in the Dewan Rakyat in the March/April meeting.

This is because Hasan’s announcement will open the way for an indefinite postponement of PAC’s report on its investigations into the 1MDB scandal, which had already stained Malaysia’s international reputation by giving the nation the third ranking in the world’s “worst corruption scandals in 2015”.

In fact, I will not be surprised if the ‘cari makan’ (make a living) PAC chairperson will find some reason to further postpone submission of its 1MDB report in the May meeting of Parliament - kicking the ball to the end of the year for the 25-day budget meeting from Oct 17 to Nov 24, 2016.

Just as “justice delayed is justice denied”, the ‘cari makan’ PAC chairperson must also understand that “accountability delayed is accountability denied.”

Malaysians must make clear their disgust that the PAC chair has no sense of national priority and urgency to ensure that the PAC should “burn the midnight oil” and for its members to work doubly, or even trebly hard, to complete investigations for presentation of its report to Parliament and the country without any undue delay.

The derailment of PAC investigations into 1MDB for close to four months last year after Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s purge of the government in the sackings of former deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin and former attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail must be deplored as a great setback to the principles of democratic accountability and good governance in Malaysia.

Why is the PAC under Hasan’s leadership taking its own sweet time, as if completely indifferent and unaware of the national and international interests about the early and swift outcome of PAC’s investigations into 1MDB?

With Hasan’s announcement that the PAC report has been kicked into the distant future, the auditor-general’s (AG) interim report on 1MDB submitted to the PAC in July should be made public without any delay.

The PAC should table the AG’s interim report at the special parliamentary session next Tuesday or Wednesday as part of the PAC interim report on 1MDB, so that the AG’s interim 1MDB report could be made public and studied by Malaysians.

What are the skeletons in the AG’s interim report that it must be kept hidden from parliamentary and public knowledge and scrutiny?

What are the real objections for the AG’s interim report on 1MDB to be tabled in Parliament next week so that it could be made public immediately, when Finance Minister II Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah had publicly claimed that the AG’s interim report had cleared 1MDB of any “wrongdoing”?

LIM KIT SIANG is MP for Gelang Patah and also the DAP parliamentary leader.