I am at the Penang High Court today to show support and solidarity with Penang Exco member, Phee Boon Poh.
I will not touch on the case the MACC is implying that Boon Poh is guilty of corruption, except to say that I am shocked at the arrest of Boon Poh by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) over alleged letters issued by his office involving an illegal factory in Seberang Prai.
I have known Boon Poh for more than 30 years since 1986, when I first contested in Tanjong parliamentary constituency in Penang. In 1990, Boon Poh was first elected as DAP Penang State Assemblyman for Bagan Jermal and in 2004 he became Penang Opposition Leader of the Penang State Assembly as Assemblyman for Sungai Puyu. When the DAP formed and led the Penang State Government in the 2008 and 2013 General Elections, Boon Poh had been a Penang State Exco member since 2008.
I have always known Boon Poh in the past three decades as a hard-working down-to-earth political leader, who has always kept himself close to the pulse of the people. Dedicated to the cause of justice, freedom and the welfare of the people, regardless of race or religion, Boon Poh is a practical idealist, who is not afraid to take up the people’s causes although this make him unpopular with the powers-that-be.
If Boon Poh is corrupt, produce the evidence and by all means arrest and charge him. But I do not believe that Boon Poh belongs to the breed of corrupt political leaders who corruptly enriches himself from politics.
We in the DAP belong to a different breed of people from the political leaders in UMNO and Barisan Nasional – we are in politics because of what we can achieve for the people and country and not for what we can achieve for ourselves from politics, while UMNO and Barisan Nasional leaders are in politics basically for what they can get from politics and not what they can contribute to society and Malaysians.
If two letters from his office asking a local government authority for reconsideration of action against an illegal factory is equal to corruption, then I dare say that there will be no State Excos, Menteri-Menteri Besar, Federal Ministers, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister left, for I have no doubt all of them would have produced sheaves of letters recommending to various authorities for reconsideration over the years.
The effect of MACC actions in the state gives the impression that Penang is the most corrupt state in the country – when discerning Malaysians will notice that the MACC had not been able to seize tens of millions of ringgit of cash and other valuables in raids in Johore or even hundreds of millions of ringgit in cash and other valuables in Sabah.
The MACC has brought Boon Poh in raids of at least five houses, and they have not been able to find one sen of ill-gotten cash or other valuables.
But the question I want to ask the MACC is why it treated Boon Poh as if he is the No. 1 criminal in the country, when MACC dares not even touch “MO1” of 1MDB scandal which made Malaysia overnight into a global kleptlocracy.
The MACC had been quite impressive in the past 12 months since Datuk Dzulkifli Ahmad took over the helms of MACC, with high-publicized frequent arrests of those guilty of corruption.
But Malaysians notice one Achilles’ heel in MACC – it dared not question let alone investigate “MO1”wand the 1MDB scandal, which is among the largest cases of corruption and kleptocracy in the world.
MACC will lose whatever little in terms of credibility and legitimacy which it had won back in the past 12 months, if it is shown that all these anti-corruption efforts came with one major sell-out: the MACC cannot extend its tentacles into the 1MDB scandal let alone touch “MO1”.
If this is not the case, then let the MACC Chief Commissioner, Dzulkifli Ahmad explain the true picture to Malaysians.
(Media Conference Statement at the Penang High Court on Monday, August 14, 2017 at 1 pm)