When I campaigned for Wong Siew Ki, the DAP/Pakatan Harapan candidate for Balakong by-election in Selangor, in Balakong new village and Cheras Batu 11 yesterday, I said among other things that MCA did not qualify for the task of providing a check and balance against Pakatan Harapan as it has no credibility, unless it is prepared to reform and start over by admitting and apologisung for aiding and abetting former Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak for the monstrous crime of corruption, like the 1MDB scandal, and condemn Najib over the scandal.

The MCA leadership has replied to my comment but it remained studiously and thunderingly silent about the global scandal of 1MDB.

Why is this so?

Dare the three MCA Ministers and the UMNO/MIC/Gerakan Ministers claim that they are not responsible for Najib’s cover-up of the 1MDB scandal and failure to defend Malaysia’s honour to counter the worldwide infamy of a global kleptocracy?

Or are the MCA/UMNO/Gerakan/MIC Ministers claiming that they were not aware of the 1MDB corruption and embezzlement scandal and that they never knew that Malaysia had suffered infamy, ignominy and iniquity of being regarded as a global kleptocracy in the international kleptocracy?

Lest the MCA/UMNO/MIC/Gerakan Ministers in the Najib Cabinet claim victims of memory loss, let me remind that them that in June 2017, I wrote an Open Letter calling on the entire Najib Cabinet to collectively resign if the Ministers were unable to purge Malaysia of the ignominy and infamy of the nation of being regarded world-wide as a global kleptocracy.

In my open letter to the Cabinet Ministers on 17th June 2017, a day after the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) expanded its kleptocratic litigation to forfeit another US$540 million of assets it alleged were stolen from 1MDB, bringing the total 1MDB-linked assets US DOJ wants to forfeit to US$1.7 billion out of more than US$4.5 billion 1MDB funds money-laundered in the United States.

The US DOJ expanded litigation referred to the “criminal conduct” in “four principal phases” over approximately five-year period from 2009 to 2014, where “multiple individuals, including public officials and their associates, conspired to fraudulently divert billions of dollars from 1MDB through various means, including by defrauding foreign banks and by sending them foreign wire communications in furtherance of the scheme, and thereafter, to launder the proceeds of that criminal conduct, including in and through U.S. financial institutions”; where the funds diverted from 1MDB were “used for the personal benefit of the co-conspirators and their relatives and associates including to purchase luxury real estate in the United States and overseas, pay gambling expenses at Las Vegas casinos, acquire more than US$200 million in artwork, purchase lavish gifts for family members and associates, invest in a major New York real estate development project, and fund the production of major Hollywood films”.

The original DOJ suit in July 2016 referred to only “three principal phases” – the “Good Star” Phase, the “Aabar-BVI” Phase and the “Tanore” Phase. There is now a fourth “Options Buy-Back” Phase, (covering 27 pages and 90 paragraphs) where some US$850 million in 1MDB funds was misappropriated under the guise of paying Aabar to relinquish certain options it had been given in consideration of IPIC’s guarantee of the 2012 bonds. 1MDB borrowed US$1.22 billion from a syndicate of banks led by Deutsche Bank in Singapore to fund these payments of Aabar, but US$850 million were diverted to Aabar-BVI and Aabar-Seychelles, that “appeared to be, but were not affiliated with IPIC and Aabar”.

There was the revelation that after the idea for the PetroSaudi and 1MDB joint venture was discussed in the summer of 2009 at a meeting arranged by Jho Low between MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1 (who was none other than the then Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak) and co-founders of PetroSaudi abroad a yacht off the coast of Manaco (which was the single event which initiated the monstrous 1MDB scam), Low emailed his parents, brothers and sister on or about September 7, 2009: “Just closed the deal with petrosaudi. Looks like we may have hit a goldmin[e].”

Jho Low had indeed struck a “goldmine”, but one which had to paid by 30 million Malaysians and future generations!

I said in my Open Letter to all Cabinet Ministers:

“No loyal and patriotic Malaysian can read the updated 251-page USA DOJ kleptocratic suit to forfeit US$1.7 billion MDB-linked assets arising from US$4.5 billion 1MDB money-laundering without consternation and horror and only those who are prepared to commit treason will be unaffected, unmoved and untouched by the US DOJ action.

“What is kleptocracy? The US DOJ kleptocratic action on the 1MDB assets is a classic lesson not only to Malaysians, but to the world, as to what constitutes kleptocracy.

“The expanded 251-page US DOJ kleptocratic action is the greatest shame to Malaysia in our 60-year history.

“Unless we can disprove the kleptocratic allegations in the US DOJ action, without having to wait for the US court proceedings to take their course in the US courts, Malaysia deserves the international infamy and ignominy of a global kleptocracy.

“The expanded 251-page US DOJ kleptocracy suit on 1MDB is a ‘must read’ for all Ministers, Members of Parliament and loyal and patriotic Malaysians who love and care about Malaysia’s good name and reputation in the world.

“I call on the 36 Ministers to place the subject of the expanded 251-page US DOJ kleptocratic suit on top of the Cabinet agenda next Wednesday, and decide on how to cleanse and purge Malaysia of the infamy and ignominy of being regarded world-wide as a ‘global kleptocracy’.

“If the Cabinet is unable as matter of national priority clear or cleanse Malaysia’ infamy and ignominy of being regarded world-wide as a ‘global kleptocracy’, I call on the entire Cabinet to collectively resign on Wednesday for failing to defend Malaysia’s good name and reputation in the world.”

Let all the 36 Ministers in the Cabinet in June 2017, including the three MCA Minister, namely Liow Tiong Lai, Wee Ka Siong and Ong Ka Chuan, why they failed to live up to national and patriotic expectations to force an issue on the 1MDB scandal in the Cabinet or to collectively resign from the Cabinet before MCA officials blabber about playing a role of “check and balance” in the Balakong by-election.

(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Gelang Patah on Thursday, 23rd August 2018)