by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on 1.1.1985:
DAP welcomes a new Board for Bank Bumiputera and express full support for its work to ‘clean up’ the Bank.
The DAP welcomes the appointment of a new Board for Bank Bumiputera, which should have been done in 1983. As Tun Hussein Onn said, “there would be a lot of cleaning up to be done’, the Board can expect the fullest support from the people and DAP to clean up the Bank.
Regardless of the outcome of the test case filed by DAP legal adviser, K.C.Cheah to challenge the legality of the Petronas takeover of Bank Bumiputera, Bank Bumiputera would continue as the major banking institution in the country with fullest government support, and the need for a new set of Board of Directors to regain public confidence is imperative.
The credibility of the Bank Bumiputera under a new leadership, however, would also be affected by the handling of the BMF loans scandal, and in this regard, I call on the new Bank Bumiputera Board to make a policy decision to make public all the reports of the Ahmad Nordin BMF Inquiry Committee, and even if necessary, to recommend to the government for the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the BMF loans scandal.