Call on Datuk Lee Kim Sai to stop ‘drawing biscuits to satisfy hunger’ and mock the sufferings of the 588,000 co-operative depositors

by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and Mp for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Gopeng on Sunday, 0.5.1987:

Call on Datuk Lee Kim Sai to stop ‘drawing biscuits to satisfy hunger’ and mock the sufferings of the 588,000 co-operative depositors

MCA Deputy President, Datuk Lee Kim Sai, should stop ‘drawing biscuits to satisfy hunger’ as their solution to the hardships and sufferings of the 588,000 depositors.

He said yesterday that the DAP is only demanding $600 million government funds to resolve the Co-operative Finance Scandal, while the MCA is asking for $1.4 billion. Datuk Lee said that if the government only gave $600 million, this would be inadequate as the bad co-operatives like KOSATU, SAKAPP and FORTISS would have to be liquidated.

I find Datuk Lee’s statement most astonishing when the Government is not prepared to come out with even $1 dollar of government fund as a direct grant to rescue the co-operatives. This is because the $600 million direct government funds to rescue the 24 co-operatives does not include the $400 million soft-loan scheme to lend to the co-operatives.

I want to ask Datuk Lee how the MCA is aking for $1.4 billion for the government to rescue the 24 co-operatives when in the Cabinet meeting on the co-operatives last November, MCA Ministers supported a Cabinet decision which rejected the ‘dollar-for-dollar’ refund as revealed by the Government White Paper?

DAP calls for a Second White Paper on the Co-operative Scandal to give full details of the fraud, breach of trust and misappropriations by ‘co-operative snakes’

Secondly, was the MCA;s request for $1.4 billion to rescue the co-operatives ever raised in Cabinet, and if so, are the MCA Ministers prepared to ask the Prime Minister to declassify the Cabinet minutes to prove it, in the way that the Proton Saga, Dayabumi and Penang Bridge documents were declassified during the UMNO party elections? Or is the $1.4 billion merely the ‘biscult’ the MCA is painting to satisfy the ‘hunger’ of the depositors as a MCA Gopeng by-election gimmick

Datuk Lee wants to compete with the DAP by asking for $1.4 billion, saying the DAP’s $600 million is not enough. He even said that if the MCA wants $600 million, all it needs is to nod its head. Datuk Lee has become the biggest liar in Malaysian politics, when everybody knows that MCA Ministers nodded their head when UMNO Ministers said the government cannot guarantee full refund of the co-operative deposits.

The DAP asked for $600 million government rescue fund (which does not include the $400 million soft-loan scheme) after our study of the Government White Paper. According to the White Paper, the 24 co-operatives faced two financial problems: Firstly, $600 million negative capital; and secondly liquidity problem as the co-operative assets are tied up in property ad shares. This is why the DAP asked for $600 million government rescue plan to absorb the losses, apart from the $400 million soft-loan scheme to help out the liquidity problem of the co-operatives, making a total of $1 billion, so that the 588,000 depositors can get ‘dollar-for-dollar’ refund.

Now Datuk Lee says a total figure of $1.4 billion is needed to rescue the 24 co-operatives. This means that the Government White Paper had not given a full picture of the fraud, breach of trust, misappropriation in the 24 co-operatives. The DAP calls for a second White Paper on the co-operative scandal to let depositors know why the problem is even more serious than that described in the first White Paper, and also to release the full list of the major borrowers and a complete picture of the crimes of the ‘co-operative snakes’.