Economist Edmund Terence Gomez, who is a former member of MACC’s Consultation and Corruption Prevention Panel, said they should be held accountable and accept responsibility.

He said these ACAB members had admitted they had no power to exonerate Azam but had done so in November last year after hearing the top graft buster’s explanation about the shares he owned in 2015.

“To my mind, the honourable thing would be to step down.

“By their own admission, they did something they now acknowledge they should not have done or they have no authority to do,” Malaysiakini reported.

In a press conference on Jan 5, ACAB chairman Abu Zahar Ujang said Azam gave the board an explanation on Nov 24 last year about his ownership of over two million shares.

According to Abu Zahar, the board was satisfied with what Azam told them — that his brother used his account to buy the shares and they had since been transferred to the brother.

They also determined that Azam had neither pecuniary interest nor any conflict of interest in the acquisition of these shares.

However, three days later, the six other members in ACAB issued a joint press statement disputing what Abu Zahar had said, claiming the statement was not the board’s position but his personal views.

They also stated that the board had no power to investigate as ACAB was established only as an advisory body.

Gomez urged the board members to produce the minutes of the Nov 24 meeting so that the public could see what had really transpired during the discussion.

“Did they act appropriately when the issue was first brought to the board meeting on Nov 24?

“If, by their own admission, they did something which they knew they had no authority to do, which is to exonerate Azam, why did they do it?

“Should they be held accountable for exonerating Azam when they have no authority to do this?”

Adding further, Gomez also questioned how members of ACAB were selected to join the board.

He claimed that the advisory board members had failed to function as required, which is to serve as a check-and-balance mechanism for MACC and its top management.

“This comes back to the question —who decides? Are we sure the members selected to the advisory board will do their job as required?

“Those are among the lessons we have learned. This crisis has shown they are not functioning as they should.”

Azam came under scrutiny recently after allegations surfaced about him having owned shares in two companies back in 2015.

According to Excel Force Bhd’s 2015 annual report, Azam owned 2,156,000 warrants in the company as of March 21, 2016. At the time, Azam was the head of MACC’s investigation division.

However, in a press conference on Jan 5, Azam said he did not do anything wrong as the shares were bought by his brother, who only used his name.

The issue also caused Gomez to tender his resignation from the consultation panel, claiming that its chairman, Borhan Dollah, did not respond to his requests for the panel to convene a meeting on the allegations against Azam.