On corruption, where are the “big fishes” the country had been promised would be netted and prosecuted in connection with the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone scandal.
I am surprised in read in the press today a statement by the MCA President Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat that the Opposition did not want him to win and be re-elected as MCA President in the MCA “Three Kingdom” party elections.
Let me declare here and now that DAP has no interest whatsoever in the MCA “Three Kingdom” party battle, in particular in the fight to be MCA President expected to be a three-cornered one among Ong, former MCA President Tan Sri Ong Ka Ting and the MCA Deputy President Datuk Seri Chua Soi Lek.
I do not want to emulate former Gerakan President, Tun Dr. Lim Keng Yaik who recently declared that Gerakan had “lost Penang for good”, gave very low assessment of his successor Tan Sri Dr. Koh Tsu Koon and contemptuous dismissal of the Najib premiership when he said: “I give up la talking to this government” to make any similar comments about the MCA leaders.
But I want to tell Ong that he is to go down in history as a short-term MCA President and Transport Minister, do it with a bang and not in a whimper. He should go all out to bring in the “sharks” of the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone scandal to justice and not be content with the “small fries”.
For several months, I had refrained from commenting on the PKFZ scandal after putting intense pressure on Ong to “tell all” about the scandal – at one stage, posing three-questions-a-day for 36 days without pause, totaling 108 questions, to force Ong to act on the PKFZ scandal.
I wanted to give Ong a completely free hand and not to feel to be under any pressure when there were signs that some action were at last being taken to ensure proper accountability for the PKFZ scandal.
However, up to now, only four not major personalities had been charged in court for corruption and abuses of power in the PKFZ scandal before the new year, with the promise by the Attorney-General, Tan Sri Abdul Gani Othman himself that “big fishes” in the PKFZ scandal were almost ready to be brought to book and prosecuted in court.
The whole nation waited in bated breath for the arrest and prosecution of the “sharks” of the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal, as nobody really believe that the four middling persons charged last December could be responsible wholly or even for majority part of the PKFZ scandal.
But the waiting of 27 million Malaysians have turned from day-to-day, to week-to-week and now month-to-month.
Malaysians are even more astounded when Ong attributed his political troubles and survival as MCA President to the PKFZ scandal, when the “sharks” of the PKFZ scandal are still scotfree and not accounted for.
All Malaysians want an answer from Ong – where are the “sharks” of the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal?
[Speech (9) by DAP Parliamentary Leader and MP for Ipoh Timor Lim Kit Siang in Dewan Rakyat on the Royal Address on Thursday, 18th March 2010]