Media statement by Tony Pua Kiam Wee in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, 5^th July 2012:

Datuk Chua Tee Yong should stop embarrassing his Party and himself further

For two days, Datuk Chua Tee Yong tantalised the Malaysian public and teased Pakatan Rakyat leaders with the spectre of a RM1 billion scandal by the Pakatan Rakyat state government.

He started on 30 June 11.47am:

"I am shocked by a 1 billion questionable deal in selangor. I hope the information I receive is correct."

Followed by another one at 3.48pm on the same day:

"The 1billion questionable deal is by the pr government. Shocking..."

And another at 8.50pm:

"The rm1billion deal by PR govt is shocking cos of how well they have concealed it. #prdeal"

Then at 10.59am on 1 July:

"Pr 1billion questionable deal Involve lots of rakyat money,state companies, private company. Lots of transaction.#prdeal"

Again a similar tweet at 3.36pm:

"PR govt claims 2 b transparent, do d best for d ppl n rakyat is boss but this 1 billion questionable deal shows it is all empty talk.#prdeal"

And finally on 2 July he announced that he will hold a press conference over the issue the next day:

"I will be giving a press conference tomorrow on "PR 1 Billion Questionable Deal". #prdeal

And what a press conference it was. The "Questionable Deal" not only confounded the reporters present, Pakatan Rakyat leaders were just stunned.

We were of course unable to make any comments or respond to the ridicule heaped upon us by the BN cybertroopers before Datuk Chua's press conference because his tweets contained absolutely no information with regards to the RM1 billion allegation. But after discover what his RM1 billion "questionable deal" was, we were simply shocked by how Datuk Chua Tee Yong got all his substantive facts over the deal wrong, to the extent that we weren't sure whether it was a R266 million, RM676 million or RM1 billion scandal by the state government.

I will be holding a press conference tomorrow to strip Datuk Chua Tee Yong's complicated accounting allegations naked tomorrow morning.

For now, I'd like to refer to Talam Corporation's press announcement made yesterday afternoon. It is clear from the points of fact raised in the statement that the Deputy Minister of Agriculture got his basic assumptions completely wrong.

Datuk Chua had alleged that "before the deal..., Talam was still under PN17 with lots of debts". He further added that "The shares of Talam cannot be traded in the stock exchange before the deal..." Hence he concluded that "this was a clear-cut case of a bailout where the Selangor government used the rakyat's money to help a listed company by buying its assets".

Factual error #1 is that Talam has on its own accorded completed the financial Regularisation Plan approved by 1st July 2009, well before the "deal" with the state government at the end of 2009. Hence the "deal" had nothing to do with Talam's financial Regularisation Plan, and hence cannot be a bailout as alleged by Datuk Chua.

Factual error #2 is that even when Talam is a PN17 company, its shares were never suspended as a result and was freely traded on the stock exchange. Datuk Chua, of all persons, being a former Chief Financial Officer of a Government-Linked Company should not be making such a mistake!

Datuk Chua should learn that before making an "expose" he must get his basic facts right of the pie will be in your face.

The worst part of this ridiculous expose is the sheer audacity by Datuk Chua and MCA to label the Selangor government's collecting of RM391 million long outstanding debts incurred during the Barisan Nasional era, a "bailout" of the debtor Talam. It is no wonder BN's management of GLCs and its crony companies is so screwed.

But that's my very own "teaser" for the day. Tomorrow I will explain clearly how Datuk Chua failed his accounting test in this "Questionable Deal".

* Tony Pua Kiam Wee, DAP National Publicity Secretary & MP for Petaling Jaya Utara