Is Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik above the law that the Anwar Cabinet Committee, Anti-Corruption Agency and all the other law—enforcement agencies dare not investigate into his multiple offences?

Speech by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, at the opening of the Johore DAP State Convention held at Tangkak, Johore on Sunday , 9th eptember 1990 at 10 a.m.

Is Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik above the law that the Anwar Cabinet Committee, Anti-Corruption Agency and all the other law—enforcement agencies dare not investigate into his multiple offences?

Corruption, abuses of power and government malpractices are the great ills of the Barisan Nasional Government, especially when it wields unchecked power because of its overwhelming two-thirds majority in Parliament.

The Cabinet has formed a Committee on Corruption, Abuses of Power and Malpractices headed by Anwar Ibrahim, but this Cabinet Committee on Corruption is more for publicity and to get political mileage, rather than to get to the root cause of corruption and Ministerial malpractices and abuses of power in Malaysia.

The Anwar Committee on Corruption and Malpractices was in slumber when it suddenly came to life a few days ago for Anwar Ibrahim to announce that there had been a mix-up of identity when it was earlier reported that the Minister of Health, Ng Cheng Kiat had bought a sizable chunk of shares in a company, when in fact it was another person with a similar name.

However, the Anwar Committee had continued to keep its silence on the allegations that the MCA President, Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik, had committed multiple offences under the various laws of the country because of his various business deals involving the Multi-Purpose Holdings Bhd., MPHB-KSM Investment Fund, Bolton Finance, Pyemas.

In fact, the Malaysian public are entitled to know whether Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik is above the law that the Anwar Cabinet Committee as well as all the other law-enforcement agencies, like the Anti-Corruption Agency, the Police, the Registrar of Companies, the Bank Negara, are singularly silent about the multiple offences committed by Liong Sik in his various business deals?

Liong Sik four major sets of multiple offences and malpractices

The major offences committed by Liong Sik involve the following transactions:

i. Remaining as director of Pyemas money brokerage firm for the five months he had returned to the Cabinet as Transport Minister from January 1986; and

ii. In helping Tan Sri Lim Thian Liang to evade and break the law limiting individual ownership of Finance Companies to 10 per cent.

iii. Breach of Section 2B B(1) (a) of the Finance Companies Act which prohibited an individual from holding more than 10% shareholdings f a finance company which came into effect immediately after he returned to the Government as Transport Minister in January 1986. As Liong Sik only disposed of his 30 per cent shares ownership of Bolton Finance in July after his ownership was made public in the Ling-Lee contest for the post of MCA President, this means that Liong Sik had broken this law for four and a half years!

iv. Breach of the Prime Minister’s directive to all Cabinet Ministers to dispose of all their private shareholdings immediately after the 1986 general elections. It is significant that although Liong Sik claimed that it had the permission of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamed, to hold on to the Bolton Finance shares, Dr. Mahathir’s first public reaction when asked by reporters was that he could not remember.

It is also significant that Liong Sik had initially explained that he had held on to the shares for so long since he was made a Minister in 1986 because he would have had to sell at a loss during the recession. But later on, Liong Sik said the arrangement for his selling the Bolton Finance shares back to Bolton Properties would not involve in his making or losing a single cent, whether the shares were sold in 1986 or 1990!

Anwar Cabinet Committee on Corruption and Malpractices is just a ‘paper tiger’

There are fertile materials for the Anwar Cabinet Committee on Corruption and Malpractices, the Multi-Corruption Agency, the Police, the Registrar of Companies and other law-enforcement agencies to work on from the various relations made during the abortive 13-day Ling-lee power struggle in the MCA in July.

The very inaction and utter lack of interest by the Anwar Committee on Corruption and Malpractices and the other law-enforcement agencies on these fertile and incriminating material shows that there is no seriousness or political will to fight corruption, abuses of power and malpractices even people in high political places.

The Anwar Cabinet Committee on Corruption and Malpractices. Like all the other law-enforcement agencies, are just ‘paper tiger’ as far as corruption and malpractices of people in high political places are concerned.