By : ATHI SHANKAR
GEORGE TOWN: DAP has
proposed six crucial steps for Putrajaya to fight graft and rescue the country
from bankruptcy.
Party secretary-general Lim
Guan Eng proposed making public declaration of assets, implementing open
competitive tenders, barring family members from government contracts,
protecting genuine whistleblowers, removing Barisan Nasional leaders with
extravagant lifestyles and coming clean on political donations.
“Will BN leaders walk their
talk by applying the six steps?” asked the Penang chief minister.
He called on the federal
government to first emulate his Pakatan Rakyat state government by
institutionalising public declaration of assets.
Lim and his state executive
councillors had already publicly declared their assets so he could not see any
reason for Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and the federal Cabinet doing so as
well.
“The declaration was even
certified by an international accounting firm,” pointed out the Pakatan leader
in his blog posting.
Lim, the Bagan MP, also
called Najib to immediately drop BN leaders with extravagant lifestyles, owning
luxury homes, cars and huge personal bank accounts in foreign countries.
The third step was to bar
family members of BN leaders from involving in government business to avoid
another RM250 million “cow – condo” National Feedlot Centre scandal.
Lim also called on Najib’s
administration to protect, not to prosecute, genuine whistleblowers, who
exposed corruption cases leading to charges in court.
The fifth, he said, BN must
come clean on political donations such as the RM40 million political donation
to Sabah Umno.
Finally, he wanted the
federal government to implement open competitive tenders like in Penang.
Without open competitive
tenders, he said public projects were directly negotiated and awarded to
cronies causing loss of public revenue such as the cheap sale of the Sungai
Besi Air Force Base land.
Similarly, he asked whether
the RM386 million for 57 KR1M stores in Sabah and Sarawak or RM6.7 million per
store was justified.
At RM6.7 million per store,
he wondered whether the KR1M stores were selling basic necessities like sugar,
salt and rice or luxury items like jewellery and designer handbags.
Due to the implementation of
an open competitive tender system in Penang since 2008, Lim claimed that his
state government was able to table surplus budgets each year with proceeds from
the savings going back to the people annually in the form of an
“anti-corruption dividend”.
Unless action was taken
against unhealthy practices, he warned that the Transparency International (TI)
Corruption Perception Index (CPI) on Malaysia would not only drop further “but
the country may go bankrupt.”
Probe Sabah Umno
Lim said Malaysia’s CPI
dropped from 37 in 2003 to 60 in 2012, prompting TI Malaysia Chapter deputy president
Mohammad Ali to note that elements of state-facilitated grand corruption were
prevalent.
He noted that even Housing
and Local Government Minister Chor Chee Heung had admitted that corruption cost
Malaysia RM26 billion every year.
He pointed out that the
Global Financial Integrity Report from Washington estimated that more than
RM1,077 million of illicit money flowed out illegally from Malaysia between
2000 and 2009.
He said Malaysians were
shocked with the written parliamentary reply by Minister in the Prime
Minister’s Department Nazri Abdul Aziz that the Attorney-General’s Chambers had
not found any element of corruption in the case of Sabah timber trader Michael
Chia, who was detained in Hong Kong for trying to smuggle out RM40 million in
Singaporean currency allegedly meant for Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman.
Nazri has said that MACC
investigations revealed that the S$16 million (RM40 million) cash constituted
political contributions to Sabah Umno and not Musa, thereby clearing Musa of
charges of corruption and money laundering.
But Lim said it was
astounding that MACC cleared Musa or Sabah Umno so easily when the political
donation involved was a huge sum.
He said MACC should instead
demand Sabah Umno to come clean on political donations especially on to who and
why Sabah Umno was able to get RM40 million cash.
He said MACC should also
probe how much more unreported political donations were forthcoming for Sabah
Umno.
The Sabah incident, said
Lim, recalled the extent of extraordinary wealth of Sarawak Chief Minister
Abdul Taib Mahmud with allegations that his family was worth billions of
ringgit.
He said the enormity of
Taib’s family wealth was corroborated by the current divorce proceedings of his
son Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib.
He said Mahmud’s ex-wife had
revealed that Taib’s son alone was worth at least RM1 billion, with 110
personal accounts in foreign banks across the globe.
Another case, pointed out
Lim was the extravagant lifestyle of Malacca Chief Minister Mohd Ali Rustam,
who until today had failed to explain who sponsored his son’s lavish wedding.
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