By Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Thursday, 4.6.1987
Alex Lee should stop the fiasco of meeting with Bank Negara Officials on the Cooperative issue when Bank Negara has not been authorised by the Cabinet to work out a dollar-for-dollar refund to depositors.
Yesterday, Gerakan Deputy Agriculture Minister, Alex Lee, announced that Gerakan officials will meet Bank Negara officials for the “first detailed discussion” to bail-out the 24 troubled cooperatives. He even said MCA Ministers and leaders would be invited to the meeting.
Alex Lee wanted to give the 588,000 depositors and the public the impression that the Gerakan was making a great breakthrough on the cooperative issue, when in fact it is a great fiasco for a Deputy Gerakan Minister to invite MCA Ministers for a joint meeting with officials of a subordinate department, especially when Bank Negara has not been authorised by the Cabinet to work out details for a dollar-for-dollar refund for the cooperatives depositors.
Furthermore, where is the credibility of Alex Lee and Gerakan leaders on the cooperative issue when Alex Lee is still one of the outstanding major cooperative borrowers with his huge loans not repaid.
The Gerakan is only interested in competing with the MCA for maximum publicity as to who is the greatest champion for the 588,000 depositors, when Gerakan leaders in the Cabinet and government had slumbered for the last 10 months on the issue. What is worse, Gerakan Minister for Primary Industry, Datuk Dr. Lim Keng Yaik, was also party to the Cabinet decision last November rejecting the principle of government guarantee of full refund to the depositors.
It is clear that the latest publicity claims and gimmicks of the Gerakan leasers in Cabinet and in government are purely for the consumption of this weekend’s Gerakan General Assembly to impress the Gerakan delegates voting in the party’s election.
I have no doubt that if the Gerakan Assembly and party elections are not held until 10 months later, the Gerakan leaders would have slept on for another 10 months on the cooperative issue.
It is not only demeaning and dishonourable for Cabinet Ministers to seek appointments with a subordinate department like Bank Negara, but a complete waste of time when Bank Negara had no authority from the Cabinet to work out a dollar-for-dollar refund scheme for the depositors. In fact, the Bank Negara’s “brief” on the cooperative issue from the Cabinet last November was that there would be no government guarantee for full refund to the depositors.
For the sake of the 588,000 depositors, the Gerakan and MCA Cabinet Members should stop playing games. They should tackle the cooperative issue at source, which is the Cabinet, so that it would rescind last November’s decision and adopt a new policy commiting the government for a dollar-for-dollar refund by March 1989. There is no point in meeting Bank Negara officials without such a new Cabinet decision and directive.
This is also why the Kelantan Mentri Besar, Datuk Mohamed Yaacob, has yesterday criticized the dollar-for-dollar refund demand for the simple reason that it had been rejected by the Cabinet last November. All contrary voices opposing a dollar-for-dollar refund would be quietened ifth e Cabinet changes its stand and support the principle of full refund to the depositors.
\For this reason, there is only one issue on the cooperative question, whether the Gerakan and MCA Ministers are prepared on the June 10 Cabinet meeting to ask for a Cabinet decision that all the depositors will get a 100% cash refund by March 1989. If this is not done, Alex Lee can have 1000 meetings with Bank Negara officials but it would be a utter waste of time.