Speech by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung , Lim Kit Siang, at the DAP ceramah at Nibong Tabal on Tuesday, 11th September 1990 at 9 pm.
Ooi Ean Kwong had told a blatant lie when he denied that the business account of Sun Lee & Co. is a very active account
Yesterday, an anti-corruption seminar was organized for 170 heads of 100 Government departments and statutory bodies in Penang. This seminar was scheduled to be opened by the Penang Chief Minister, Dr. Lim Chong Eu, but he did not turn up and send instead Datuk Khoo Kay Por.
I can understand why Dr. Lim should feel uncomfortable at this time to officiate at the opening of an anti-corruption seminar, because of the scandal of the Penang Speaker, Datuk ooi Ean Kwong, violating the Penang Constitution by being involved in business.
How can Dr. Lim Chong Eu talk convincingly about the need to fight corruption when the Penan Assembly has a Speaker who had openly violated the Penang Constitution which forbid a Speaker from being involved in business in order to ensure integrity and morality in high political places? No wonder Dr. Lim decided to send Khoo Kay Por to open the seminar instead.
Dr. Lim and everyone in the Penang State Government knows that Ean Kwong had violated the Penang Constitution and is not fit to continue as Penang Speaker, but they want to play games to pretend that the case had not been established.
Ooi Ean Kwong is so afraid that Karpal Singh and I would raise this matter in the next State Assembly meeting that he had called an illegal meeting of the Penang Assembly Privileges Committee yesterday to consider ways to bar Karpal and I from attending any more future meetings of the Penang Assembly until the next general elections!
Challenge to Ean Kwong to deny that he issued hundreds of Sun Lee & Co. cheques during the 27 months he was prohibited by the Penang Constitution from any business involvement
According to a Chinese press report today, the Privileges Committee decided that both of us cannot attend any more Penang State Assembly meetings.
This is the first time in Malaysian history where a Speaker is so afraid that his misdeeds and misconduct would be exposed in future meetings that he is prepared to commit another illegality by unlawfully excluding Karpal and me from the Penang Assembly until the next general elections.
When I met Dr. Lim Chong Eu over Ooi Ean Kwong’s case on September 1, I told him that the facts and the law are very clear that Ooi Ean Kwong had violated the Penang Constitution by being actively involved in business through the Sun Lee & Co. and that Ooi Ean Kwong should give up his Speakership.
Dr. Lim said that having a bank account does not mean that the account was active and business was being done. This was why I challenged Ooi Ean Kwong then to deny that the Sun Lee & Co. bank account was a ‘very active’ bank account.
In response to my challenge, Ooi Ean Kwong issued a one-paragraph statement denying that the Sun Lee & Co. was a ‘very active account’.
This is a blatant life. As Ean Kwong has never denied that he operates the Sun Lee & Co. account, is Ean Kwong suggesting that the Sun Lee & Co. account was a dormant account, which existed only in name, and was not operated at all from December 1986 to March 1989, when he is prohibited by the Penang Constitution from being involved in any business, whether family or corporate?
What could make the Sun Lee & Co. account a ‘very active’ bank account to Ean Kwong? I challenge Ean Kwong to deny that from December 1986 to March 1989, he issued not only dozens, scores but hundreds of cheques in the Sun Lee & Co. account, which would make it a very ‘very active’ account indeed!
Yesterday, Ooi Ean Kwong criticized Karpal Singh for making public “evidence” of his unlawful and unconstitutional involvement in business and claimed that any such proof should be forwarded to the State Legal Adviser.
This is utter nonsense, for the State Legal Adviser has no powers of investigation under the law. This is just looking for an excuse to stall the case until the next general elections.
Dr. Lim Chong Eu and the Penang Gerakan State Government should realize that they cannot claim to be a clean and honest government so long as the Ooi Ean Kwong case hangs over their head, without resolution.
Gerakan should put up more ‘Reject 1046 posters’ in Penang
It was reported in a Sunday newspaper that the Gerakan leaders in Penang was acting mysterious in not wanting to explain as yet the meaning of the Gerakan poster, ‘Reject 1046’, in Penang.
In actual fact, at the 3,000-People DAP Ceramah last Friday to welcome the 27 Chinese educationists and civil rights activists at Penang Chinese Town Hall, I had already explained the meaning of this Gerakan poster campaign on ‘Reject 1046’. This is the Gerakan counter to the DAP’s earlier poster campaign of ‘500 votes is enough’ – that if there is an extra 500 votes to support the Opposition in all the constituencies in the next general elections, then the DAP can form the next Penang State Government.
In launching the ‘Reject 1046’ poster campaign, the Gerakan wanted to tell the Penang people to reject the combination of DAP (which has 10 Assemblymen) and Parti Sarawak 46.
However, as I told last Friday’s ceramah, I also agree with the Gerakan poster of ‘Reject 1046’, for 10 DAP Assemblymen plus Semangat 46 would not be adequate for the DAP to capture Penang state power in the next general elections.
What the voters of Penang should aim for is to support 20 DAP Assemblymen plus Semangat 46. this is why I agree with the Gerakan poster campaign of ‘Reject 1046’, for what we want is ‘Vote 2046’!
The Gerakan claims to have a high-powered brains-trust under the leadership of Dr. Koh Tsu Koon and Dr. Kang Chin Seng. However, from its ‘Reject 1046’ poster campaign, this Gerakan ‘brains-trust’ is not impressive at all.
In fact, I call on the Gerakan to put up more ‘Reject 1046’ posters throughout Penang state, for this is exactly the message the DAP wants to put across to the people, that what the people of Penang want is not ‘1046’ but ‘2046’ in the next general elections.
No wonder Gerakan leaders feel so shy that dare not publicly explain why they have launched a poster campaign to spread a message on behalf of the DAP!