I have instructed my lawyers to file a defamation suit against MCA-owned The Star and MCA Vice-President Tan Teik Cheng for their lies against me on SJKC Kuek Ho Yao intended to cause DAP to lose seats, especially the Yong Peng state seat, in the Johor state elections.
In an online article in The Star on 7 March 2022, MCA Vice-President Tan Teik Cheng said “During the Johor state election, he(Guan Eng) dared to claim that he had allocated RM4mil to SJKC Kuek Ho Yao. However, he still did not dare deny that the condition for allocating that sum was to change the name of the school.”
This is false and untrue. The RM4 million was handed over even though construction had not yet begun. As Finance Minister, I had never set the condition that SJKC Kuek Ho Yao must change its name to receive my allocation of RM4 million. The Star should pay the price for being a purveyor of fake news for its owner MCA.
Tan repeated his lie in his Facebook post yesterday. In his Facebook post yesterday, Tan asked why I had not taken any action when he had posed the same question 8 days earlier on 28th February in the Chinese papers. Tan clearly wants me to take action against Chinese newspapers in addition to the defamation action against the MCA-owned The Star.
During my 22 months as Finance Minister, I had allocated RM43 million for new construction purposes to 26 Chinese primary schools. MCA could never achieve this RM43 million in any 22-month period they were in power. Such allocations were given unconditionally by the Finance Ministry on application by the then Deputy Education Minister Teo Nie Cheng.
MCA has been spreading lies in their desperation to regain seats that they had lost in the 2018 general election, particularly Yong Peng. I have no choice but to sue in court when these lies are repeatedly serially and slowly believed by the public because no defamation suit was filed.
Defamation Suits On Lies That I Imposed Taxes On Profits Brought Back From Overseas By Malaysian Companies.
Apart from education matters, I have also been subject to vicious rumours that I had imposed new corporate or income taxes, such as the new tax on Malaysian company profits earned overseas that are brought back to Malaysia. This new tax was imposed in the 2022 Budget and will heavily impact Malaysian companies operating in Singapore as well as lead to the eventual imposition of tax on income earned by 400,000 Malaysian workers in Singapore.
The government had said that the tax on income brought back by Malaysian workers will not be taxed for the time being. However, as there cannot be one country, two systems, such income by Malaysian workers earned in Singapore will be imposed after the 15th general elections.
I have also asked my lawyers to study on the possibility of filing additional defamation suits against those who lied that I had introduced such new taxes when the opposite is true:- the corporate tax for SMEs was reduced by 1% to 17% and the taxable income threshold for the 17% was increased by RM100,000 from RM500,000 to RM600,000.