Press Statement by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Monday, March 19, 1990.
Lim Kit Siang writes to Dr.Mahathir Mohamed for an appointment to discuss a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the funding, the politics of money and corruption in all political parties
I have today written to the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr.Mahathir Mohamed, asking for an appointment to discuss the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the funding, the politics of money and corruption of all political parties.
In my letter, I rejected the irresponsible allegation made by UMNO Baru Youth and taken up by the Prime Minister on Saturday that the Opposition parties are being funded overseas by “foreigners harbouring ill-intentions against the Government”, which is wild and completely baseless.
I remanded the Prime Minister that he could not accept at face value the unsubstantiated allegations of UMNO Baru Youth, and in fact of all UMNO Baru national leaders, as Dr.Mahathir had himself admitted that the UMNO Baru Secretary-General, Datuk Mohamed Rahmat, who is also Information Minister, had sent out a circular to all UMNO Baru Division on Sept.15, 1989 about the voters’ registration campaign which is “completely baseless and irresponsible”- in other words, what Datuk Mohamed Ratmah said in his circular are downright lies.
If the UMNO Baru President as Prime Minister had to admit publicly in Parliament last Thursday that the UMNO Baru Secretary-General had told lies in his circular to all UMNO Baru divisions, how could he believe the wild and unsubstantiated allegations of UMNO Baru Youth.
DAP keen to have a Riyal Commission of Inquiry
However, I told Dr.Mahathir that I am very keen that there should be a public Royal Commission of Inquiry into the funding, and in particular, the politics of money and corruption in political parties in Malaysia.
I reminded the Prime Minister that only on February 28, a senior Anti-Corruption Agency officer, Encik Zakaria Mohamed Esa, 51, testified in the Kuala Lumpur High Court in a defamation suit that he was directed to stop investigations and close the case of a million-dollar corruption case against UMNO Johore and the then Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Musa Hitam, in 1981.
I also mentioned the need to probe into a police report about another million-dollar UMNO Baru Johore scandal involving the grant of a logging concession in Muar in 1988, which I raised in Parliament in November last year.
$300 million kickback to UMNO Baru from $4 billion British arms deal?
The people also want to know the truth of the allegation by London Observer that UMNO Baru received $300 million arms purchase deal.
A public inquiry is also called for into the funding of political parties through privatisation and co-operatives, for instance the North-South Highway privatisation contract awarded to the UMNO company, United Engineers Malaysia (UEM), the corporate empire emanating from the UMNO trustee holding company, Hatibudi, and the connection between the losses suffered by KOBENA running into tens of millions of ringgit and UMNO Baru Youth.
In my letter to the Prime Minister, I suggested also how such a Riyal Commission of Inquiry could be constituted. It could comprise three or five eminent Malaysians whose independence, impartiality and integrity are accepted by all political parties. Alternatively, it could be constituted by a representative or nominee by each political party, headed by an independent chairman who is non-partisan. All the members of such a Commission will have full powers of a Commissioner to pursue whatever line of party funding, politics of money and corruption that particularly interest him.
I also suggested to the Prime Minster that an all-party conference be convened to discuss the establishment of a Riyal Commission of Inquiry to conduct public investigations into the funding and the politics of money and corruption in all political parties.
Such a Royal Commission of Inquiry should have as one of its major term of reference the inquiry into the amounts of money spent by the various political parties in the general elections.