DAP calls for a White Paper on the $100 million KOBENA scandal and the expose of the national and state UMNO leaders implicated in the scandal

by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Saturday, 6th July 1991:

DAP calls for a White Paper on the $100 million KOBENA scandal and the expose of the national and state UMNO leaders implicated in the scandal

Finance Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, said yesterday that action will be taken against those responsible for the third Bank Bumiputra scandal in causing the ‘irregularities’ which resulted in its subsidiary, BBMB Securities, losing $72 million.

Anwar Ibrahim however has failed to make a statement on the Singapore Business Times report two days ago that 42 people would be prosecuted for insider trading scandals involving $100 million to $180 million, where “very senior Bank Bumiputra executives, government officials and other company directors” had benefitted from massive share-rigging.

DAP calls on Anwar Ibrahim to be firm in ensuring that the highest standards of integrity and probity are maintained in the securities, banking, finance and corporate world.

For too long influential, powerful and politically well-connected people had escaped with impunity despite their dishonest and dishonourable conduct in the securities, banking, finance and corporate world, whether for criminal breach of trust, abuses of power and position, conflicts-of-interest situations, unethical practices and other forms of malpractices.

Can Malaysians expect that Anwar Ibrahim, as the new Finance Minister, will start on a new and clean page to wipe out all the crookedness, dishonest and corruption in the securities, banking, finance and corporate world in Malaysia?

Anwar Ibrahim must know show that the he will be firm with all the current scandals which had recently surfaced, whether the third Bank Bumiputra scandal, or the $71 million Masjid Tanah ammunition depot scandal or the $100 million KOBENA scandal.

It would create a new crisis of confidence if the new Finance Minister has different standards for different scandals.

It is for this reason that the DAP had been calling on the Kedah Mentri Besar, Tan Sri Osman Aroff, to break his silence and explain his role in the $71 million Masjid Tanah ammunition depot scandal, and whether he would make good for the $30 million which the Federal Government would now have to incur to repair the ammunition depot.

Similarly, the DAP calls on the Government to issue a White Paper on the $100 million KOBENA scandal, and to name the national and state UMNO leaders implicated in the KOBENA scandal.