Media Statement (2) by Lim Kit Siang in Petaling Jaya on Sunday, 5^th July 2009: 

Will Liong Sik undertake that he will not copy Mahathir’s example of selective amnesia when he appears before the PAC on the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal so that Malaysia will not have “Three Tuns in Selective Amnesia?”?

Former MCA President and Transport Minister Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik has said he has nothing to hide and is ready to appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to explain his role in the controversial RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal.

Can Liong Sik undertake that he will not copy his former boss, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s example of selective amnesia at the Lingam Videotape Royal Commission of inquiry when he appears before the PAC on the PKFZ scandal, so that Malaysia will not have “Three Tuns in Selective Amnesia”?

In January last year, Malaysians were treated to the sorry spectacle of the former Prime Minister and former Chief Justice Tun Eusuff Chin competing with each other in selective amnesia when they were summoned to give testimony by the Lingam Videotape Royal Commission of Inquiry.

Mahathir said “I cannot remember” or its equivalent 14 times during his 90-minute testimony before the Royal Commission while Eusuff Chin said “I cannot remember” or its equivalent 18 times in his testimony.

Malaysians did not believe that Mahathir had become so forgetful that he had to invoke the “I cannot remember” mantra 14 times in his short testimony especially as Mahathir was still famed for his poem, Melayu Muda Lupa.

The Malaysian public was really aghast at Mahathir’s testimony because of the public perception that Mahathir had a reputation for remembering details others could hardly recall as illustrated by his mastery to recall effortlessly details of Rafidah Aziz’s excesses in the AP scandal without any prodding.

Can Liong guarantee that the country would not be presented with a third Tun in selective amnesia when he is called to appear before the PAC to give testimony about the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal?

“Three Tuns in Selective Amnesia” will really be intolerable, insufferable, a great national shame and infamy.

In the past 36 days of “three questions a day” on the PKFZ scandal to the Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat, I have posed 108 questions.

Ong’s failure and inability to answer the 108 questions is akin to his failure to pass as Transport Minister and McA President like Shaolin disciples in “fighting stories” who could not pass the gauntlet of the 108 movements of Shaolin Wooden-men Lane and 18 Lohans to to leave the Shaolin Mountain to out into the world.

I am taking a three-day break from the 36-day “three questions a day” session and 108 questions and will decide whether to continue with the daily questioning on the PKFZ scandal, and if so, in what new form.

I note that Ong’s “hired guns” and “cultural assassins” in MCA Hqrs continue to pour out attacks on me, which are issued in the name of MCA small fries and operatives from the various states, the latest emanating from Bukit Mertajam.

These “hired gun” attacks from MCA’s “cultural assassins” from the MCA headquarters, purportedly to defend Ong from my persistent questions to get to the bottom of the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal, would support the decision that I continue with “three questions a day” as I have no problem in coming out with another 108 questions to Ong on the PKFZ scandal.

I will announce my decision in two days’ time.

*Lim Kit Siang, DAP Parliamentary leader & MP for Ipoh Timor