Not our job to vet political aides, says Parliament Select Committee chief

PETALING JAYA: Ministers and their deputies are solely responsible for vetting political appointees employed by them, says the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on Major Public Appointments.

"It is not under our scope to look as such appointment as the PSC only looks at major government appointments.

"If they are political appointments, it is up to the ministers concern to carry out their own vetting," said its chairman William Leong (pic) when contacted on Thursday (June 13).

Asked if the PSC's scope should be widen to include the vetting of political appointments working for ministers, Leong said that this was not practical.

"There are already so many appointments under the civil service and it would be quite humanly impossible to look at so many appointments

"The responsibility of vetting political appointments should fall on the ministers as these are the people that will be working for them," he added.

Leong was asked to comment on calls by some quarters for the PSC to vet political appointees following the recent sex video scandal involving a deputy minister's senior political aide.

On Wednesday (June 12), Muhammad Haziq Abdul Aziz admitted that he was the other individual seen in a sex video which has been making its rounds on social media and WhatsApp over the past three days.

He claimed that the video was taken without his permission on May 11 during the Sandakan by-election in his room at Hotel Four Points.

Azmin, in a statement released later Wednesday, denied allegations that he was the other individual in the sex video.

Haziq was said to have previously worked as an intern to a former Barisan Nasional minister in 2017.

He was appointed senior private secretary to Deputy Primary Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Seri Shamsul Iskandar Mohd Akin in January this year.