KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 12 — Klang MP Charles Santiago today said that Dewan Rakyat Speaker Datuk Azhar Azizan Harun should have abstained from reaching a conclusion regarding the Pandora Papers exposé before an official enquiry into the matter had been carried out.

Charles was referring to Azhar’s statement yesterday where the latter said that the Pandora Papers do not show that there are billions of ringgit being lost to offshore accounts, but rather just reveal the owners of shares in offshore accounts. 

"Maybe he looks into a crystal ball for answers. Whatever it is, Parliament Speaker Azhar Harun’s conclusion that the Pandora Papers aren’t about the illicit outflow of money is baffling,” wrote Charles in a Facebook post.

"Shouldn’t there be a proper investigation or a Royal Commission of Inquiry before Azhar arrives at his bizarre conclusion? Mr Speaker, this is really not cute,” he added.

In Parliament yesterday, Azhar and Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim argued over the Pandora Papers after the former told the latter that the motion to debate its contents had been submitted under the wrong Standing Order, and was thus rejected.

During their exchange, Anwar asked why Azhar "wants to become a lawyer for the corrupt groups” and that those implicated in the leak should be allowed to explain themselves.

Today, Charles stressed that it was easy to hide money offshore through shell companies set up in countries with high levels of secrecy, adding it would be difficult to identify the true owners of these companies.

"Isn’t Azhar privy to this information? So why would he believe the so-called negligible numbers he sees as assets belonging to these prominent, wealthy Malaysians?

"I agree that it’s not illegal to have an offshore account but it’s certainly fraudulent to avoid taxes and have hidden assets. Without independent investigations, we would never know what some of the prominent Malaysians named in the leaked documents were up to.

"It’s especially damaging when a sitting Cabinet minister, Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, who holds the finance portfolio, is also named,” he said.

Charles then called for an investigation into the source of the funds used by those alleged to own offshore accounts and properties, including Tengku Zafrul and former ministers Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Tun Daim Zainuddin.

On October 3, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released the Pandora Papers, a hoard of data — reportedly involving some 11.9 million documents and 2.9 terabytes of data — used to expose supposedly corrupt dealings of the global elite.