by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Friday, 2.11.1984:
Challenge to Neo Yee Pan MCA establishment group to explain whether it is because they have skeletons in their own cupboard that they dare not publicly expose the loan irregularities of a local finance company
In his budget speech on Tuesday, the Neo Yee Pan establishment MCA faction MP, Tan Kok Hooi (Padang Serai) again raised the question why I had not made public the loan irregularities of a local finance company, suggesting political principle had been compromised.
The question is not why I had not made public the loan irregularities of the local finance company, but why the Neo Yee Pan MCA fraction had not dared to make such loan irregularities public, especially as they had announced that they had the same information in my possession?
Is it because the Neo Yee Pan MCA establishment faction have many leaders who have skeletons in the cupboard which cannot see the light of the day, and are afraid of reciprocal and mutual exposes about each other’s irregularities and ‘dirty linen’ that they dare not make public the loan irregularities of the local finance company?
Last month, I had said publicly that T have received information about loan irregularities about a local finance company, which involved some $30 million, and where loans involving some $20 million were loaned out to two companies with paid up capital of $2.
Immediately after my statement, the MCA Establishment Group faction announced that they had information about the loans irregularities of a local finance company, and that they would be making public the matter as well as pursuing the matter with the authorities.
It is clear from the MCA Neo Yee Pan faction statement that they were referring to the same local finance company and the similar loan transactions I had mentioned.
During the Dewan Rakyat debate on the BMF loans scandal. The MCA MP, Tan Kok Hooi, deviated from the subject to try to provoke me to make public the loans irregularities of the local finance company, suggesting that I had been ‘offered’ and bought over for keeping quiet about the matter.
It was clear that the Neo Yee Pan MCA faction is trying to ‘borrow other’s sword to kill people’ and I don’t see why I should be made used of as an instrument by either faction in the Neo Yee Pan-Tan Koon Swan MCA power struggle. A Deputy Minister (not from MCA) subsequently confirmed to me that Tan Kook Hooi’s speech in Parliament was made on the directive of Neo Yee Pan.
In view of this new twist of development, I declared in my budget speech in Parliament on 24th Oct 1984 that since the Neo Yee Pan MCA faction had had information about loans irregularities of the local finance company, and would be making it public, I would give the Neo Yee Pan faction the opportunity to do so, reserving my position on the matter until later.
Instead of accepting my challenge to the Neo Yee Pan MCA faction to make public the loans irregularities of the local finance company, the Neo Yee Pan MCA faction had backed out, and sent Tan Kok Hooi to make a second speech this Tuesday in Parliament raising the same subject matter as to why I had not make the issue public.
I know that why Tan Kok Hooi’s political intelligence is very limited, and does not understand the simple language I used in my budget speech, but Datuk Dr. Neo Yee Pan and other leaders of his faction should understand that I am now waiting for them to make the expose instead.
If the MCA Neo Yee Pan faction have information about the $30 million loan irregularities of a local finance company, and yet dare not go public as a matter of public interest, then they should publicly declare so, and stop pretending that they would be doing so. Secondly, they should also explain whether their refusal to make public the loans irregularities of the local finance company is because of their own fear that the many skeletons in the cupboard of Neo Yee Pan faction leader which could not see ‘the light of day’ might be exposed too?
The Neo Yee Pan MCA faction and the Tan Kok Hooi must have the courage to publicly accuse me of having been ‘bought’ over to silence me on the loans irregularities of the local finance company, so that I could take legal action to sue them for defamation to clear the imputations made on my character and reputation. If Tan Kok Hooi dare not do so publicly, straightforwardly without any qualifidations, then he is typical of the clowns in the Neo Yee Pan MCA establishment faction who are in the final analysis, political cowards! But I do not really blame Tan Kok Hooi, for the man behind his every action and statement is Neo Yee Pan.
I therefore call on Neo Yee Pan to come out of hiding and the shadows, and if he wants to throw any challenge at me, have the courage to do so directly and personally, and not do so through proxies like Tan Kok Hooi who does not know that he is being used as a pawn.