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KUALA LUMPUR – Former Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the government should ignore budget advice given by a “convicted criminal” in Parliament who has been found guilty of corruption.
Referring to MP Najib Razak, another former prime minister, Dr. Mahathir told an online news site that Parliament has become contaminated by allowing Najib to speak.
“Nowhere in the world, we cannot find a convicted criminal to come to the House and advise the government. This is astonishing,” Dr. Mahathir told The Malaysian Insight news site as reported on Friday (November 13). .
“Only in Malaysia, we can be proud that the prisoners are the advisers to the government. This shows that this government is so inefficient that the convicts can reprimand (the government). This act has contaminated the Chamber,” he added.
This followed Dr. Mahathir’s remarks in Parliament on Thursday (November 12), where he asked why “convict” Najib postponed his ongoing corruption trial on other charges related to the state fund 1MDB, but had time to speak in Parliament.
“It is very strange that his trials have been stopped, but the convict can be present in Parliament to deliver his speech,” the online news service Free Malaysia Today quoted Dr. Mahathir during the debate on the 2021 budget.
Najib was sentenced in July to 12 years in prison and fined 210 million ringgit (68 million Singapore dollars) after being convicted of all seven charges in the first of his five trials related to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal. . Appeal against the sentence.
His other 1MDB-related court cases have been postponed by the court.
Najib, who is still a deputy, was recently appointed president of the Barisan Nasional Backbenchers Club (BNBBC), which has 42 deputies, including 39 from Umno.
He spoke in Parliament for more than an hour Tuesday as head of BNBBC, telling the government that his faction will not support the budget for next year unless his proposals are met.
Last week, the Malaysian government, backed by Najib’s Umno party, revealed that 1MDB still had an estimated RM32.3 billion in debt outstanding as of September.
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