(Parliament, Wednesday): I am surprised at the different answers given to me and to the media by the Deputy Finance Minister on the oral question that  I asked on Monday, 27th September 2005.

On 27th September 2005, I asked the Finance Minister to state the list of 20 companies with the highest market capitalization in the Malaysian Bourse, and I asked him to state the market capital for each company and share control according to race.

I then discovered that the reply that I received on that day is different to the reply that was published by the media.

While the article in the Star 27/09/05 and other papers list Khazanah Holdings as one of the share holders, the answer that the Minister gave in Parliament does not disclose the amount of shares held by Khazanah Holdings. In fact, in the list given to me in Parliament, the Khazanah shares have been added to the ‘Non-Bumiputra’ column, thus giving the false impression that the Non-Bumiputra shares are higher than actual figures.

I am highly disappointed that the Finance Minister has misled Parliament in this regard and demand that he apologizes to the House for releasing these conflicting figures. Parliament will well remember the incident where MP for Bukit Gelugor, Karpal Singh, was asked to apologise for citing a wrong act with regards to the oath-taking ceremony of MPs last year.  So an apology from the Finance Minister for his misleading information is therefore well in order so as not to cast doubt on his integrity.