BN’s national conspiracy to character assassinate me over the purchase of my house through lies and half-truths, double-standards and even abuse of power, is a blatant attempt to justify, blot out or distract attention from the real financial scandals of BN such as the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal, the RM2.6 billion donation scandal and the latest RM100 million corruption scam in the Youth and Sports Ministry.
The BN scandals have caused losses of public funds and hurt the nation’s economy with the depreciation of the ringgit, whilst the purchase of my house has shown the highest levels of transparency and accountability with the practice of open tenders and even opening up my house for inspection by the media. And yet the BN’s print and broadcasting media continues its blanket coverage of my house, as if there are no other news or issues in the world.
The latest Gerakan’s claim is that a July 2003 Penang government memo showed the land in Taman Manggis was proposed for a People’s Housing Project (PPR) by the previous BN administration. How did Gerakan possess a government document as far back as 2003 that the present state government is only aware of now?
Why Was Not Even A Single Unit Of Public Housing Built For The 5 Years Until 2008, If BN Had Made Such A Proposal In 2003?
If Gerakan claims that a 2003 state government memo had proposed such a public housing project, the most important question is this –
“Why was the public housing scheme not built by BN during the 5 years from 2003 until 2008, without a single unit being constructed? Why was nothing done if there were such plans in 2003?” Clearly this is another empty talk by BN.
At the time we made a decision to sell the Taman Manggis land by open tender to promote medical tourism to build a hospital, there were no talk of doing public housing. This is confirmed by a 2001 layout plan submitted to Majlis Perbandaran Pulau Pinang by the Jabatan Perumahan Negara(National Housing Department) under the Federal government’s Housing Ministry, which clearly stated that the Taman Manggis land was for “future development” without any mention of public housing.
In contrast the Penang Pakatan state government acted quickly. Considering the Taman Manggis land of 1 acre too small for public housing, the Pakatan state government had allocated a bigger site of 11 acre(10 times larger) in neighbouring Jalan SP. Chelliah for affordable housing and low medium cost houses. An open tender of the project was conducted in 2013 and work on the 2,093 units have started with 20% completion. If not for the victimisation by the Housing Ministry, in delaying the granting of Advertising Permit and Developer License(APDL) by one year for this project, the project will be more than 20% completed.
Is Gerakan now going to claim that BN had also planned to use Jalan SP Chelliah for public housing many years ago, but yet cannot answer why it is the Pakatan state government that acts to build whilst the BN state government does nothing?
Not Knowing The Value Of My House Relate To UMNO’s Lies That Is Worth RM6.5 Million.
Another BN lie is my statement that I did not know the value of my house even though I signed the Sales & Purchase Agreement and paid stamp duty. I had replied to a question on whether the value of my house was RM6.5 million as alleged by UMNO. I replied honestly I did not know if my house was valued at M6.5 million as I am a Chief Minister and not a property agent. My reply in reference to the RM6.5 million lie by UMNO, was even highlighted in the front-page of the Star(see attached) and yet has been twisted and distorted.
BN is trying to compare the former Selangor Menteri Besar Khir Toyo’s corruption case with mine, that the purchase of my house is connected to my landlady benefiting from the sale of government land in Taman Manggis to a company, KLIDC. My landlady has stated that she had sold her house to me on her own free will. BN ignores the fact that the sale to KLIDC was by open tender, and my landlady is neither a director nor shareholder of KLIDC. KLIDC is also not a subsidiary company of any of my landlady’s company.
For this reason, the state government and myself has nothing to hide and welcome a MACC investigation. We will give full co-operation to investigations conducted by the MACC, who visited my offices yesterday.
Despite the Penang Pakatan government practicing the highest levels of accountability and transparency, BN will make black into white and white into black. Will the BN leaders do what I have done, which is to open my house up to the media, make public declaration of our personal assets and identify who is the donor of the RM2.6 billion?