DAP publicity secretary Teo Nie Ching had urged former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to explain why he, as the then finance minister, gave favourable treatment to Boustead Naval Shipyard in the building of littoral combat ships (LCS) for the navy.

The question that Teo should ask, however, is why did it take a long time for Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional to discover the irregular practices of some officials that led to the controversy.

The grand idea is to find something like the 1MDB scandal to hit the government with, so that 2018 will happen all over again and PH will return to power.

Political analyst Awang Azman Pawi, for instance, said the RM9 billion LCS controversy is being used as a "political weapon". 

And the timing of the Public Accounts Committee's (PAC) — led by DAP's Wong Kah Woh — disclosure of the report on the LCS cannot be mere coincidence.

The PAC began probing into the procurement of the ships in 2020 and had called several officials to testify before it.

The issue was first raised in the 2019 Auditor General's Report.

The question is, why did it take so long for the PAC to deliver its findings?

These should have been released either early this year or in June when the MoU between the government and PH was still in place.

If we don't want to impute politicking to Wong, then the inability of the PAC to release the report earlier is just a matter of inefficiency and of not knowing priorities.

Hence, the call to cut the allowances/salaries of MPs in this trying time is justified.

Jamari Mohtar
Editor of Let's Talk!
Kuala Lumpur 

https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/letters/2022/08/824222/why-did-it-take-so-long-pac-deliver-its-findings