The Speaker, Tan Sri Pandikar Amin today rejected my emergency motion in Parliament to debate the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal to establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry as not urgent on three spurious grounds that:
(i) the Port Klang Authority (PKA) has set up a task force and two committees as follow-up to the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report on the PKFZ;
(ii) a copy of the PwC report has been submitted to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC); and
(iii) the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is conducting investigations on the PKFZ.
My motion read:
“That the House gives leave to MP for Ipoh Timor YB Lim Kit Siang to adjourn the House under S.O. 18 (1) to discuss a definite matter of urgent public importance – the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal.
“The PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) audit report into the PKFZ made public on May 28, 2009 was most unsatisfactory as its terms of reference were restricted to “a position review” instead of wide-ranging inquiry as to how a RM1.1 billion scandal in 2002 under Tun Ling Liong Sik as Transport Minister, could more than quadruple to RM4.6 billion under Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy as Transport Minister in 2007 and now further doubled to RM7.453 billion and heading towards the figure of RM12.5 billion under the present Transport Minister!
“Although the Prime Minister had on 29th May publicly directed the Transport Minister to answer every question raised by any party on the PwC report on PKFZ, and I had been posing three questions a day on the PKFZ since 30th May, no satisfactory answers had been forthcoming from the Transport Minister.
“RM12.5 billion is not chicken-feed. It is equivalent to five RM2.5 billion BMF scandals. RM12.5 billion can be used to build 25 universities at RM500 million each; 125 hospitals at RM100 million each; 1,250 schools at RM10 million each; 312,500 low-cost houses at RM40,000 each or give everyone of the 27 million Malaysians regardless of age a payout of RM338!
“Only a Royal Commission of Inquiry, where previous Transport Ministers, PKA Chairmen and Board members, as well as the relevant government officials in the Transport Ministry and Finance Ministry are summoned to testify on their role can do justice for accountability and integrity in the ‘scandal of scandals’.”