The government has no power to act on Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairperson Hasan Arifin, who had expunged a couple line in PAC's 1MDB report.

"For your information, PAC is a committee established under Article 77(1) of the Standing Orders of the Dewan Rakyat.

"Thus, it is not the jurisdiction of the executive to decide the status of the PAC chief," said Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Azalina Othman Said.

Azalina said this in a written reply to Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Gelang Patah) submitted in Parliament yesterday.

"I want the prime minister to state if action will be taken against Hasan for deleting two lines from the PAC report," Lim said in his question to the House.

He said the deleted part involving the concern voiced by Bank Negara Malaysia about Good Star Limited, which is owned by an individual, has no connection with PetroSaudi International.

On April 20, PAC member Tony Pua pointed out that Hasan had deleted certain lines from the PAC report on 1MDB that were crucial to the investigation.

'Finding crucial to investigations'

The lines concerned Bank Negara's information that Good Star Ltd, into which US$1.03 billion from 1MDB's joint venture with PetroSaudi International was diverted to, was owned by an individual and not linked to the PetroSaudi group as claimed.

"This finding is crucial to the entire investigations into 1MDB because the company and its executives have testified to PAC that Good Star is a subsidiary of Petrosaudi," Pua had then said.

Yesterday, Azalina also pointed out that the PAC chief had received Bank Negara's information which stated that all the information given was "confidential for the purpose of intelligence only for court usage or public report".

She said that all PAC members were informed of the matter via a letter penned by the PAC chief to the deputy governor of the central bank on April 6.