Stop dodging questions on Rosmah, DAP tells PM’s aide
Yeo Bee Yin says Rizal Mansor should just respond to the questions raised previously over the prime minister’s wife and her role in Permata.
PETALING JAYA: Selangor assemblywoman Yeo Bee Yin says DAP is still waiting for answers to questions over Rosmah Mansor’s role in Permata.
She also challenged Rizal Mansor, an aide to Prime Minister Najib Razak, to address the issues without dragging in unrelated matters.
In a statement today, Yeo repeated her question regarding the need to place early childhood education development programmes under the prime minister’s department.
The Damansara Utama rep has repeatedly said that such programmes should be under the education ministry and the women, family and community development ministry, as they are better equipped and have more expertise and experience in the field.
She also asked why Permata needed a patron when countries with world-class early childhood education programmes such as Finland, Sweden and Singapore had no such position.
In addition, Yeo asked about the legitimacy of Rosmah’s position in Permata. This is also an issue she had raised before, suggesting that Rosmah was only patron of Permata because she was the prime minister’s wife.
“Is it by merit or marriage?” Yeo said today.
Finally, she asked if Permata was sincere about meeting the party’s demand for accountability and transparency.
“Is Rizal Mansor going to bring us around the world before he would reason with us on the call for Rosmah to resign as the patron of Permata?
“Or he’ll not answer at all as he has run out of ideas to defend his boss in Permata?” she said.
Yesterday, Rizal had released a statement taking Yeo to task for asking Rosmah to step down as patron of Permata.
He listed Rosmah’s academic qualifications before reminding Yeo that as patron, Rosmah had no executive powers whatsoever.
He also said that Permata needed to be under the prime minister’s department as there were tighter controls pertaining to the disbursement of funds.
But Yeo said today that Rizal had dodged DAP’s main questions in the discussion.
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“I would like to challenge Rizal Mansor not to drag other issues into our Permata discussions and answer the above questions head-on,” she said.