Malaysians have placed their faith on a competent Attorney-General (AG) to ensure that those found corrupt and have abused their powers will be brought to justice via an efficient, effective and fastidious prosecution.
In a case which involves as much as RM12.5 billion of tax-payers’ money “lost”, we had hoped that the Malaysian Government will pull out all stops to ensure that those guilty are punished accordingly.
However, with the acquittal of Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik and yesterday’s withdrawal of 3 charges against Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy by the AG, Malaysians are now left bewildered as to who are those responsible for the country’s most expensive scandal to date.
In February 2009, the auditors appointed by the Transport Ministry, PriceWaterhouse Coopers (PwC) also confirmed that the then Minister of Transports had issued letters of support which could be construed as a guarantee that PKA would meet its obligations on a full and timely basis. These letters caused the Government to pay in full the contractual amount to bondholders, despite these services not having been completed to specifications or at all. These letters should have been approved by the Finance Ministry.
After extensive interviews and investigations, the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had in its November 2009 strongly recommended that Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy be charged for criminal breach of trust by issuing 3 letters of guarantee on behalf of the Government without the approval from the Finance Ministry.
The report said the PAC was informed by the AG that the three support letters issued by Chan, were implicitly a form of guarantee from the government to ensure that there would be allocations for PKA, to enable it to meet its obligations under the development agreement. As a result, Chan can be charged with criminal breach of trust under Section 409 of the Penal Code, read with Section 409B.
Unfortunately, despite the AG’s testimony to the PAC, he has chosen not to charge Tan Sri Chan for criminal breach of trust. Chan was instead given a mind-boggling charge of having cheated the then Prime Minister, Tun Abdullah Badawi. This was a charge which ultimately proved impossible after the humiliation suffered by the prosecution over the earlier acquittal of Tun Ling Liong Sik who was similarly charged for having misled Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammed.
Why did the Attorney-General not charge Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy for criminal breach of trust despite the PAC recommendations? Once again, the question needs to be asked, did the AG frame the charges fail against both Tun Ling Liong Sik and Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy?
Were the former President and Deputy President of Malaysia Chinese Association (MCA) intentionally given flimsy charges so as to provide the Najib administration with the appearance of taking a strong stand against corruption before elections, knowing full well that these charges cannot stick?
Regardless of whether the charges were intentionally framed to fail or otherwise, the sheer incompetence of the AG cannot be tolerated, and if the Prime Minister is serious about punishing wrong-doers in his administration, Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail must be sacked and replaced with another who is not only competent, but will act without fear or favour.