Media Conference Statement by Lim Kit Siang at DAP National Headquarters in Petaling Jaya on Saturday, 27^th June 2009: 

Did the Cabinet discuss the scandalous million-ringgit fee to Jean Todt as Malaysia’s tourism ambassador or are the Cabinet Ministers deaf to the nation-wide howls of outrage when this news came out

My three questions (No.85 to No. 87 on the 29th day in the current series) to Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat on the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal today are:

Question No. 1: Why is Ong continuing to evade the issue that up to now despite two weeks of parliamentary meeting, MPs have not received copies of the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) audit report and appendices on the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal?

Somehow Ong, who claims that he is the most “intellectual” MCA President in the history of MCA, just cannot understand this simple issue.

He forced the poor Port Klang Authority (PKA) Chairman Datuk Lee Hwa Beng to come out with a fierce statement attacking me for making statements which are “baseless” and “preposterous”, which completely avoided the issue (i) that MPs have after two weeks of Parliament not received or sighted the PwC report and appendices on the PKFZ; (ii) whether MPs will get the PwC report and appendices before Parliament adjourns on Thursday on 2nd July and (iii) if not, on what specific date MPs will get the PwC report and appendices on the PKFZ scandal.

Does Ong realise that the longer he drags out this issue, the more scandalous is his display of utter Ministerial impotence and ineptitude as he could not even do a most simple thing to get the PwC report and appendices tabled in Parliament to allow MPs to study them in trying to understand how the country is landed with the “mother of all scandals” - the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal?

Ong has four days next week to redeem himself by getting the PwC report and appendices tabled in Parliament without any ado, so that MPs can begin to study them.

Something must be very wrong with Ong when he could not even table the PwC report and appendices on the PKFZ scandal after more than a month of its publication!

Question No. 2 - In a weekly parliamentary commentary in today’s Utusan Malaysia entitled “Tee Keat kena ‘serang’ di Parliamen”, Nizam Yatim among other things wrote: that Ong, “yang baru pulang dari menghadhiri Pertunjukan Udara Paris di Peranchis, dilihatnya seperti tidak membuat persediaan secukupnya untuk menjawab di Parlimen”.

Ong was clearly not prepared to answer all the pertinent questions about the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal when he returned from his junket at the Paris Air Show, which was why he made an eight-minute Ministerial “non-statement” which did not say anything which was not known to the observant Malaysian public.

Can Ong explain why he was so unprepared and unready to answer and “tell all” about the PKFZ scandal, as he had promised when he became Transport Minister after the last general elections 15 months ago?

Question No. 3: The Utusan Malaysia commentary ended as follows:

Dalam pada itu, Timbalan Menteri Kewangan, Datuk Dr. Awang Adek Hussin yang menggulung usul itu pada Khamis juga tidak terlepas daripada asakan Kit Siang yang memintanya memberi penjelasan sama ada Kabinet membincangkan atau tidak pengeluaran surat jaminan kepada projek PKFZ.

Tindakan Kit Siang itu, menyebabkan Yang Dipertua Dewan Rakyat, Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia terpaksa campur tangan dan dengan nada suara yang tinggi menegaskan bahawa soalan itu tidak seharus ditanya kerana Timbalan Menteri tidak boleh menghadiri mesyuarat Kabinet.

Does Tee Keat agree with the Speaker that Deputy Ministers, when representing Ministers to speak and reply in Parliament, cannot be asked about what Ministers did or did not do in Cabinet?

Does this mean that henceforth Deputy Ministers should not be allowed to represent Ministers in Ministerial replies whether during question time or debates, so as not to provide an escape route for Ministers and the Government evade full parliamentary accountability?

Will Ong and the MCA Ministers, Deputy Ministers and MPs agree to an amendment to the parliamentary Standing Orders barring Deputy Ministers from replying on behalf of Ministers in Parliament, making it compulsory for every Ministerial reply to be given by the Minister concerned?

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