Challenge to  candidates for MCA President, Deputy President, Vice President and Central Committee elections to publicly support the call to  the government to release  the full list of  individual APs issued to Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries and Members of Parliament
 

Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang  

(Parliament, Wednesday): Although the APs scandal had rocked the country for more than two months, climaxed by  the release of APs lists  for 2004 and 2005 on the directive of   the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who had to intervene to override  the obsession  of secrecy  of the Minister for International Trade and Industry, Datuk Paduka Rafidah Aziz, the full story of the APs has yet to be told.

Malaysians are still waiting for the full lists of APs for the 16 years from 1987 to 2003 when   Rafidah was the MITI Minister as she has repeatedly said she has nothing “to hide or protect” – as well as the APs list for the earlier years going back to 1970, including the period from 1978 to 1981 when former Prime Minister  Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad was the Minister for Trade and Industry.

However, the two APs list for 2004 and 2005 which had been made public are still not complete, bringing to mind the response of  Mahathir to the  release of the first AP  list a week ago:  “Once you have released, release everything because people may feel suspicious.”

The two APs lists which have been issued for 2004 and 2005, for instance, do not give the individual APs which had been  issued every year, which is estimated to be in the region of 5,000 a year.

Are Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries entitled to APs  and if so, the full list of APs issued to them as well as to all MPs from the issue of the first AP should be made public.

Rafidah should make public all the categories of individual APs issued, the rationale for their entitlement  (explaining  why Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries and MPs have been issued with APs and when this practice was first introduced),  and furnishing for every year a full list of the issuance of  individual APs.

I hope the MCA national leadership, in particular the candidates for the MCA President, Deputy President, Vice President and Central Committee elections, will publicly  support the call  to the government to release the full list of individual APs issued to Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries, MPs as well as to Chief Ministers, Mentri-Mentri Besar and State Assembly members (if any) to demonstrate their commitment to  accountability, transparency, integrity and good governance -  especially as a MCA-owned newspaper had been trying to “gun” for DAP MPs on the APs issue in the past two days.

(03/08/2005)