Press Statement by Charles Santiago in Klang on Friday, 13^th June 2009:

Political & public will required to uncover PKFZ RM 12 billion fiasco

The Port Klang Authority (PKA) haphazard formation of a special task force and two committees to act on Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) findings on the country’s biggest financial scandal is worrying.

It appears that Transport Minister Ong Tee Kiat is orchestrating a cover-up of the wrong-doings that took place since the year 2000 in relation to the PKFZ.

The Transport Minister is running away from admitting a simple point: that abuse of power, and gross negligence on the part of the government and PKA was the single most important cause of the fiasco.

A further reason can be attributed to the collusion between government regulators and individuals in PKA and PKFZ. Regulators were either - bought-over, intimidated or closed one eye fearing persecution.

Also, representative from the Ministries of Transport, Finance, Economic Planning Unit and the Selangor state government were PKA board members. They are in the board as custodians of Government's public interest. What answers do they have regarding this fiasco? Why were they silent? Or were they forced into silence.

After 5 years since the first police report including Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission was made over the PKFZ issue, the authorities knew of the shortcomings, flaws and abuses. Why are these committees and task forces being set up when the substance of the issues have already been determined?

What actions will be taken against those people already identified as being involved in the fiasco?

Why the committee on governance? PKA did not face accusations of wrong-doing and abuse when it was developing North Port from 1963 to 1986 and the RM 1.2 billion Westports terminal from 1990 to 1995.

This is because PKAs board and management were law abiding government servants who adhered to the PKA Act, by-laws, and government regulations which stipulates accountability and transparency mechanisms and protects government's interest.

Unfortunately, the board and management since the year 2000 chose not to follow these stipulations. This led to the colossal inflation in the PKFZ construction liability of RM 12 billion.

Thus, what we need is a royal commission to look into the extent and depth of the mismanagement and misuse of public funds, given that this is the biggest financial scandal that the country has seen.

If the Minister thinks that with the setting up of the special task force and committees in order to buy time while they figure out what to do with the RM 12-billion liability and which small fish to fry, then they're not fooling anybody.

People are waiting for results.

* Charles Santiago, DAP Selangor Vice Chairman & MP for Klang