KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 ― Speaker Tan Sri Azhar Azizan Harun told the Dewan Rakyat today that he approved Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s appeal for time after calls were made for the former prime minister to explain his remark that the government has yet to service 1MDB’s principal debt.

Azizan said Najib had written to him earlier this week, and that he had agreed to give the Pekan MP until Tuesday next week to appear before the House to explain.

On that basis, the Dewan Rakyat Speaker rejected Damansara MP Tony Pua’s application to discipline Najib for refusing to appear before members of Parliament and clarify his remark that Putrajaya has not used "a single sen” of public monies to repay 1MDB’s principal debt.

Putrajaya has not used "a single sen” of public monies to repay 1MDB’s principal debt. 

Opposition lawmakers alleged Najib’s assertion was misleading.

"Yesterday, I received a letter from Pekan asking for more time until next Wednesday to explain. I had approved the request by Tuesday morning,” Azizan told Pua.

"So there is no question about whether or not Najib had defied my order,” he added.

Pua tried to file a motion to refer Najib to the Rights and Privileges Committee. He accused the Umno lawmaker of misleading the House and failing to follow the Speaker’s directive for clarification.

Azizan issued the directive to Najib last Monday. He initially ordered Najib to provide an explanation in writing by today.

Najib was reported by the press saying he would only do so next week after the March 12 Johor election ended.

Pua argued that Najib had no reason to ask for a time extension since he is not contesting a seat in the Johor election.

"His action was clearly a contempt against the House and a contempt against a ruling made by the House [Speaker] and the appropriate action must be taken against Pekan,” the DAP lawmaker said.

"He is not a standing candidate in Johor, but just there to support [Barisan Nasional’s] campaign. Whatever ruling made by the Speaker should be supreme,” Pua added.

Najib, who has been convicted of multiple charges of corruption and power abuse involving funds worth over RM40 million embezzled from SRC International, said in Parliament last week that no public funds were used to repay 1MDB’s principal debt.

He argued that most of the funds to service the debt would have come from entities like Goldman Sachs, audit firms KPMG and Deloitte, AmBank and the US Department of Justice.

These institutions had returned some of the funds embezzled from the firm totalling RM23 billion to Malaysia. SRC International was a former subsidiary of 1MDB.

* A previous version of this story contained an error which has since been corrected.