It is shocking at that during the Senate sitting on 10.12.2019 MCA Vice President Senator Ti Lian Ker openly questioned the credibility and integrity of TAA to handle/manage the RM 40million allocation granted to TAR UC. According to the Hansard, Senator Ti said as follows:
“Persoalan saya, bagaimana sebuah persatuan yang cuma ada aset bernilai RM10 ribu dengan defisit RM7,000 tetapi telah diberi tanggungjawab yang besar untuk memegang peruntukan sebanyak RM40 juta daripada kerajaan? Sejak bilakah kerajaan menyumbang kepada persatuan alumni wang sebanyak itu? Manakah presiden dan manalah nasnya ataupun autoritinya, dengan izin.
Kalau mahu pun, mengapa tidak disalurkan kepada persatuan alumni KUTAR yang jauh lebih besar dan lebih kukuh berbanding dengan TAA? Adakah hubungan kronisme ataupun nepotisme di sini? Sejauh manakah peranan kementerian dalam memantau kredibiliti serta integriti persatuan ini dan apakah jaminan kementerian bahawa persatuan ini mampu menyalurkan secara ikhlas dan setulus hati mereka kesemua peruntukan yang diberikan kepada pembangunan para pelajar di KUTAR?”
The MCA Senator instead of congratulating TAA for being chosen as the vehicle to manage the RM40 million allocated by the Ministry of Finance had deliberately chosen to mock despise and insult TAA. Perhaps MCA is jealous and fearful that TAA will outshine the MCA board of Trustees in managing the said allocation of RM40 million to improve the much neglected welfare of the abundance especially the lack of hostels facilities.
Philanthropist Koon Yew Yin made an offer of RM30 million some years ago for the building of hostels for University Tunku Abdul Rahman (Utar) students in Kampar, Perak. The said Philanthropist declared that he had no profit incentive and that all the profit from the rental should be used to build more hostels within the university campus.
It is common knowledge that the Perak State Government has given 1,200 acres (486ha) of land to UTAR. The university only concentrated on building lecture halls to make money and did not bother to provide student hostels because building student hostels is not as lucrative as building lecture halls.
According to Koon Yew Yin, MCA rejected his donation offer because a few of the MCA leaders, who owned most of the land outside the university, did not want him to disrupt their lucrative housing development business.
Against the aforesaid background, Dato’ NH Chan a retired Court of Appeal Judge wrote an article “Why should MCA interfere with UTAR” on 5th Nov 2010; his stated inter alia:
“But in Malaysia, Utar and MCA vilified Koon for demanding accountability and transparency in how the university and its authorities from the political party would manage his RM30 million. Their action sinks my opinion of the MCA to an even lower level”. The said sentiments of Dato’ NH Chan is probably shared by many in the community.
The MCA Senator should withdraw this offensive remark and apologise to the Chinese Community and especially TAA. Any right thinking parents would be proud when their children graduate from tertiary education; MCA would appear to be the exception who looks down upon TAA which is an Alumni of TAR UC by questioning its credibility and integrity. No wonder MCA suffered massive rejection by the voters especially the Chinese Community during the PRU 14.