KUALA LUMPUR: After weeks of pressure from various quarters, the Public Accounts Committee will finally be getting a new chairman to replace Datuk Seri Ronald Kiandee.
The government will move a motion in the Dewan Rakyat to replace the current chairman with Barisan Nasional’s (BN) Parit Sulong MP Datuk Noraini Ahmad.
The motion, which will be tabled by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, appears as the ninth item on the Order Paper of the Dewan Rakyat sitting today.
The motion will only likely take place next week, the last week of the current parliamentary sitting which ends on April 11.
Calls for a new chairman have been rife since Kiandee defected Umno to join PPBM on March 15.
Despite Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) pledge to have an opposition MP head the PAC, Mahathir had maintained that Kiandee would remain the chair of the committee, leading to opposition from various lawmakers and the public.
In protest, PH’s Permatang Pauh MP Nurul Izzah Anwar quit the committee, followed shortly after by three opposition MPs, namely Noraini, Jasin MP Datuk Seri Ahmad Hamzah (BN) and Kota Baru MP Datuk Takiyuddin Hassan (PAS).
Another MP to have voiced intention to quit, should the issue prolonged, was Subang MP Wong Chen.
Mahathir later said Kiandee would be replaced once a suitable candidate was found, while Deputy Dewan Rakyat Speaker Nga Kor Ming also previously claimed that a new chairman would only be appointed once all pending PAC cases were completed.
Meanwhile, Wong commended the government’s move to finally appoint a new chairman from the opposition, saying it would enable PH to regain some credibility on its election manifesto.
“More importantly, this change of heart could signal the start of the much-delayed reforms as contained in the manifesto,” he told theSun.
