UTRAJAYA, Aug 22 — Umno’s Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed said his decision to leave the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) for a deputy home minister post may cost him the Pulai federal seat in the next general election as it has made Malaysians “unfairly” angry at him.
But Nur Jazlan, who is known as one of the few moderates in the Malay nationalist party, defended his decision nonetheless, saying it was more meaningful for him to promote good governance in the executive.
His new job in the Home Ministry, he added, is even more challenging than his previous work as PAC chair.
“In Pulai, I’m already preparing to lose the election because of the PAC case, people get angry at me, unfairly, and they may vote against me,” Nur Jazlan told Malay Mail Online in an interview here Wednesday.
“First of all, you can’t put hopes on one person, and then when that one person disappoints you, you turn against him. If they kill me, then they kill somebody who already has a track record in First of all, you can’t put hopes on one person, and then when that one person disappoints you, you turn against him. If they kill me, then they kill somebody who already has a track record in trying to do the right thing, and [is trying to] hasten this evolution of change,” the Pulai MP added.
Nur Jazlan was appointed deputy home minister last month in a sudden Cabinet reshuffle, which forced him to leave the PAC due to parliamentary rules that prohibit those in government from being part of the parliamentary committee. This subsequently caused the PAC’s investigation on state-owned firm 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) to be suspended pending the appointment of a new chair in October.
The Umno lawmaker noted that his majority dropped drastically to just over 3,000 votes in Election 2013, compared to over 20,000 in the 2008 general election, attributing it to the Chinese sentiment against Barisan Nasional (BN).
“DAP did an extremely good campaign with the Chinese — excellent,” Nur Jazlan said. “I nearly lost despite people knowing that my mother is Chinese and I learned how to speak Chinese.”
“They still didn’t vote for me. And they know that I’m a moderate, and they still didn’t vote for me because my label is Umno”.Nur Jazlan then lamented over the way voters cast their ballots along party lines.
“You say you want this type of people, right? Good people, transparent, but when it comes to elections, you only look at them as one of the party candidates.
“So this move from the Parliament to the executive has got many risks for me personally and I’m willing to accept it,” he said.
Nur Jazlan said, however, that he has laid the foundation for the PAC to function well without him after he was appointed chair in 2013, such as putting in staff and creating a secretariat for the parliamentary committee that examines government accounts, as well as upgrading the PAC’s website, putting PAC reports online and linking them to the Parliament Hansard.
“The transparency in the PAC today is much better than what it was before,” he said.
Nur Jazlan also pointed out that he took a big risk in calling up 1MDB executives to the PAC, besides getting heat for summoning secretaries-general of various government ministries over Auditor-General’s reports.
“I took a big risk there too with my bosses, with the executive,” he said.
“Even the AG’s Report, you think the sec-gens like to be called to the PAC? You think they don’t complain to the ministers, why is this stupid PAC chairman being so hardworking in this committee? And we don’t have any allowance”.
MALAY MAIL ONLINE
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