Jakarta – An Indonesian parliamentary committee investigating financial scandals allegedly linked to President Abdurrahman Wahid was accused by a sacked member on Monday of working to bring down the embattled president, reports said.

"The Bulogate committee is a huge conspiracy which is actually creating chaotic conditions in order to bring down the president," sacked member Habil Marati of the Muslim United Development Party (PPP), told journalists at the parliament building.

'Bulogate' is how the media have dubbed a four million dollar embezzlement scandal involving an employees' foundation of the state food distribution agency, Bulog. Wahid's masseur is accused of eliciting 35 billion rupiah (almost four million dollars) from the foundation, Yanatera, in Wahid's name earlier this year.

Members of parliament, increasingly hostile to Wahid, have formed a special committee to determine Wahid's involvement in either the Bulog scandal or a second scandal involving a two million dollar humanitarian donation from the Sultan of Brunei.

However the masseur, arrested two weeks ago after four months on the run, told police last week that Wahid neither knew of nor had any involvement in his actions.

Marati says he was sacked from the committee last week because of his criticisms of its function. The committee was "extremely premature and unethical," he was quoted as saying by Detik.com news. "As a member of parliament, I continue to say what's right is right, and what's wrong is wrong. In my opinion, the Bulogate committe is wrong," he said.

Marati said parliament had no business looking into Bulogate because it involved private, not state funds, according to Koridor.com news. "The DPR has no right to form a special committee in relation to a private company. Yanatera is a private company," he said.

He said his sacking was at the direction of committee chairman Bachtiar Chamsyah. "It was in fact Chamsyah's personal suggestion," he said.

However PPP Secretary General Ali Marwan Hanan told AFP Marati had been sacked because he was not active enough and often absent from its hearings. "It wasn't because he was critical. It's normal to criticise," Hanan said. Marati was replaced by a fellow PPP member Achmad Farial.

Several legislators, spearheaded by national assembly chairman Amien Rais, appear to have stepped up a campaign in recent weeks to call for Wahid's resignation, citing failure in his duties and corruption – as yet unproved – as reasons for getting rid of him.

They said the country's economy was still at a standstill and the government had also failed to rapidly settle communal unrest that has beset the country in recent years.

House of Representatives speaker Akbar Tandjung said last week that a special session of the 700-seat assembly could be held to impeach Wahid if the committee found him guilty of corruption in either scandal.

Repeated calls for Wahid's resignation and Wahid's defiant responses have been blamed for sending the rupiah plunging past the 9,000 to the dollar mark to its lowest level since July. The rupiah touched 9,380 to the dollar in Monday trading.