When the Ong faction split asunder at the MCA central committee meeting of Oct. 14 following Ong’s refusal to resign as MCA President despite the passing of a motion of no confidence in his leadership at the Oct. 10 MCA extraordinary general meeting (EGM), Ong wrote in his blog to justify his decision:

“I still have a long list of unfinished business involving Party and public interests, like the direct election of the MCA presidency and the Port Klang Free Zone issue. It is my wish to see such issues be addressed without any abrupt disruption.”

Yesterday, Ong conspicuously omitted any mention of the PKFZ scandal when he reiterated that he had “unfinished work” as reasons for the reconciliation with Chua and Liow to reassemble the ill-fated and short-lived “1MCA-1Team” which he had launched on the eve of the Oct. 10 EGM but had not survived for more than 48 hours.

Is full accountability and transparency for the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal a casualty of the latest MCA “greater unity plan” of the Ong, Liow and Chua factions?

Clearly, it will not be the only one.

For some two months in the run-up to the Oct. 10 MCA EGM, the over 2,300 MCA delegates, the Chinese community and the Malaysian people were told that great issues of right and wrong were involved but they have proved to be, as Shakespeare would describe it, “A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.

The roiling MCA crisis provide many salutary lessons why statements by political leaders cannot be taken at their face value. For instance, while Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy Umno President, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was saying publicly on Tuesday that Najib will not intervene in the MCA leadership crisis unless asked to do so by all members of the MCA Central Committee, top MCA leaders were already trooping into Najib’s presence for a “peace pow-wow” without the knowledge or consent of the MCA central committee members.

The Oct. 10 MCA EGM proved that there were not just two factions – Ong and Chua factions – in the MCA, but also a “third force” causing the EGM to end with a most unprecedented and completely unexpected result, rejecting both Ong and Chua.

But hovering over them is a more powerful force – the “super force” of Umno, as personified by Najib.

The MCA central committee members, the 2,300 delegates, the Malaysian Chinese community and the entire Malaysian people have all been taken for a ride!

DAP MP for Segambut, Lim Lip Eng, had also submitted a question on the PKFZ scandal for the first day of Parliament on Monday, and his question had also be knocked off to Dec. 1, 2009.

I had slated to ask the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak in Parliament on Monday “the outcome of 2007 Cabinet decision commissioning the Chief Secretary, Economic Planning Unit, Prime Minister’s Department to look into various aspects of irregularities in the Port Klang Free Zone scandal, including unlawful issue of four Letters of Support”.

Why is the Prime Minister not ready to answer this question on Monday?

This has reinforced my reservations about the Super Task Force into the PKFZ scandal set up by Cabinet in early September, headed by the Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan.

The question that needs answer is what had happened to the Cabinet decision two years ago that the Chief Secretary head an investigation into the PKFZ scandal, including “determining the type of misconduct or criminal element on the part of individuals or entities involved in the project and recommend actions to be taken against them”?

If the Cabinet decision in 2007 could have ended in a blank, what guarantees are there that the Super Task Force set up in September this year would be any different?

I do not want to get involved in the intensifying MCA power struggle but many are seeing any departure of MCA President and Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat as the effective end for any full accountability and transparency of the “mother-of-all-scandals”.

Are all the Cabinet Ministers, whether Umno, MCA or the Gerakan Minister in charge of KPI, prepared to give a categorical commitment that there will be no compromise in the full disclosure of the PKFZ scandal – whatever happens to the MCA power struggle?

The displacement of the two questions Lip Eng and I had submitted on the PKFZ sandal for the first day of Parliament on Monday to some five weeks later in December does not inspire confidence whatsoever that we will head in this direction.

Led by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, those who had spoken of action under the Official Secrets Act include the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin, the Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail, the Deputy Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Ismail Omar and Director of Commercial Criminal Investigation Department, Datuk Koh Hong Sun.

However, none of them has shown any concern about the right to know of Malaysians about the hows and whys the taxpayers are being burdened with the “mother of all scandals” – the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal running through three Prime Ministers, three Finance Ministers and four Port Klang Authority Chairmen.

Najib said: “We will inform the people what we should concerning the case and we will do so later but that is no excuse to reveal cabinet papers.”

The question Najib has failed to answer is why the Cabinet papers on the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal should continue to be kept as secret documents instead of being declassified, unless the Barisan Nasional has skeletons in the cupboard which must be kept hidden from public knowledge and scrutiny.

As former member of the Cabinet, the Chairman of Public Accounts Committee, Datuk Azmi Khalid would have access and digested the Cabinet documents on the PKFZ scandal.

Why didn’t the PAC, under his chairmanship, summon the Chief Secretary Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan to appear to help the PAC inquiry into the PKFZ scandal and testify as to the information given to the Ministers and the decisions taken by the Cabinet on the issue?

Shouldn’t the PAC take a stand that all the Cabinet documents and papers relating to the PKFZ scandal should be declassified not only for full study by the PAC buit also by all MPs and the Malaysian public – unless there are skeletons which must be kept hidden?

In the PAC hearing on August 12, the Attorney-General Gani Patail had made clear his position that the four Letters of Support issued by the two previous Transport Ministers Tun Dr. Ling Liong Sik and Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy from 2003 – 2006 for the RM4 billion bonds by the PKFZ turnkey contractor Kuala Dimensi Sdn. Bhd (KDSB) – and which has landed the government with the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal – were in fact Letters of Guarantee and had been unlawfully issued.

The next logical question is why the Attorney-General did not prosecute the two former Transport Ministers for unlawfully issuing the four Letters of Support landing the taxpayers with the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal?

This is the question which the Attorney-General and the government leadership should be answering instead of running after Raja Petra and Malaysia-Today under the Official Secrets Act for their role as whistleblowers.

But all these efforts by Najib had failed to convince the Malaysian public that the Prime Minister is committed or capable of fundamental change in government.

One important reason is the long drawn-out farce of the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal – resulting in the public fallout between the MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat and the Barisan Nasional Backbenchers Club (BNBBC) Chairman Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing who is also the CEO of the PKFZ turnkey contractor Kuala Dimensi Sdn. Bhd and other political skirmishes in MCA, Umno and Barisan Nasional.

For the past three consecutive days, fugitive blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin has published on his website Malaysia Today documents including Cabinet papers throwing light on the extent of Cabinet involvement in the PKFZ scandal, snowballing from a RM1.1 billion scandal in 2002 under Tun Dr. Ling Liong Sik as Transport Minister to RM4.6 billion in 2006 under Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy and now set to become a RM12.5 billion scandal under Ong Tee Keat.

Does the Prime Minister deny the veracity and authenticity of the official and Cabinet documents about the PKFZ scandal revealed by Raja Petra on his website, whether they fall under the Official Secrets Act or otherwise?

Have these documents been brought to the attention of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) investigating into the PKFZ scandal, and if not, isn’t it right and proper that the PAC should extend its sessions on testimony from witnesses to bring these documents within its cognizance before reaching its end stage to formulate its conclusions and findings for submission to Parliament?

The person most suitable to be summoned by the PAC to throw light on these official and Cabinet documents would be none other than the Cabinet Secretary Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan who was appointed to the highest civil service position in September 2006.

In fact, the PAC should question Mohd Sidek to find out why in the past two years he had failed to carry out the Cabinet decision to investigate and take the necessary action against those responsible for landing the government and country with the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal – especially on the unlawful issue of the four Letters of Support by the former Transport Ministers, Ling and Chan!

The failure of the PAC to summon Mohd Sidek to give testimony in its inquiry into the PKFZ scandal will be a major and even fatal one affecting the credibility and acceptability of the final PAC report.

In fact, it is precisely because of Mohd Sidek’s failure to carry out the Cabinet’s decision in 2007 to investigate and take the necessary actions against the culprits of the PKFZ scandal that there is widespread skepticism and cynicism about the Super Task Force under his chairmanship into the PKFZ scandal announced by Najib last week – as it smacks of being a Super “Cover-Up” Task force more than anything else.

For this reason, the PAC should suspend its deliberations on its conclusions on the PKFZ inquiry to summon the Chief Secretary as Mohd Sidek’s testimony can completely change the entire character of the PAC’s findings, especially in the light of the official and Cabinet documents published by Raja Petra on his website in the past three days.

The best Hari Raya present Najib can give the country on his first Hari Raya as Prime Minister is to declassify all Cabinet minutes and documents on the PKFZ scandal to send out two unmistakable messages to the nation and the world , viz

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his commitment to accountability, integrity and good governance and that he and his administration have nothing to fear or hide in the PKFZ scandal; and
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an end to the culture of impunity and that no one implicated in the PKFZ “mother of all scandals”, regardless of his position or status, whether in MCA, Umno or any Barisan Nasional party, is above the law and will be brought to justice so that the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal will not end up as another “heinous crime without criminals” like the RM2.5 billion Bumiputra Malaysia Finance (BMF) scandal three decades ago.

Otherwise, the coming Hari Raya holidays will be another gloomy one in terms of public accountability, integrity and good governance.

Part 2 — BN’s crisis of confidence : BN leaders have eyes that see not, ears that hear not, mouth that speak not or talk rubbish.



Part 3 — 1st case in Commonwealth parliamentary history where a Cabinet Minister accuses an Opposition MP for not telling the whole truth about Cabinet decisions on a project


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Why hadn’t the MCA President and Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat raise with Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who had become Finance Minister since September last year when he was Umno Deputy President, the issue of the declassification of certain letters and correspondence in relation to the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) project so that the Pricewaterhouse Cooper (PwC) audit report on the PKFZ scandal could be made public?

Or was he just afraid to discuss the issue with Najib in the past six months until he got the nod from Najib?

This is clearly not a relationship between political equals but between a political master and an inferior!

These are the thoughts of anyone who read yesterday’s Edge Malaysia online report, headlined “Najib to hear out Tee Keat on PKFZ declassification”, viz:

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak will hear out what Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat has to say about the proposed declassification of certain letters and correspondence in relation to the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) project that has hogged the limelight for its huge cost over-run.

“I don’t know. I’ll have to check with him (Ong) first”, Najib said when asked to comment on Ong’s remarks on Sunday that the delay in releasing the PKFZ audit report, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), was caused by another ministry in declassifying certain letters and correspondence.

Ong had told reporters that his ministry was not the cause of the delay in releasing the PwC report but another ministry. He had said that PKA had been seeking the declassification of letters and correspondence pertaining to the PKFZ since the beginning of the year from the other ministry and still awaiting the approval.

It has been reported that the other ministry is believed to be the Ministry of Finance.

The current issue of The Edge weekly reports that the PKFZ project can cost up to RM8 billion instead of RM4.6 billion due to the higher cost of funds and unfavourable financing terms. It is said that the project to build a transshipment hub started off initially with a budget of less than RM2.5 billion.

Najib took over the Finance Ministry post on 17th September last year, and Ong’s failure to raise the issue of the publication of the PwC report on the PKFZ scandal, involving the declassification of documents under the Official Secrets Act, in the past six months is a sad reflection on the MCA President’s commitment to accountability, transparency, integrity and good governance as well the seriousness of his much-touted pledge to “tell all” to Malaysians about the PKFZ scandal.

Now everyone is asking whether the PKFZ scandal has ballooned from RM1.8 billion when Datuk Seri Dr. Ling Liong Sik was the Transport Minister, to RM4.6 billion when Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy took over the Transport Ministry and now to RM8 billion under Ong.

Can Ong continue to put up the public pretense that he is not directly and personally responsible to honour the pledge he had publicly given in April last year that Malaysians would be told the entire truth about the PKFZ scandal?

Part of the RM2 billion development cost will come from the Eighth Malaysia Plan.

Of the RM2 billion, half will be used to acquire and develop the 403ha site in Pulau Indah, near Westport.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the remaining RM1 billion would be spent over the next two years to build a multi-storey operations and business centre and facilities for light industries, such as terrace, semi-detached and detached factories.

The Port Klang Authority is to take charge of the overall development of the PKFZ, which will cater to the needs of manufacturing activities within it through procurement and distribution facilities.