Press Conference Statement (3) by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Penang on Wednesday, 26th February 1992 at 11.30 a.m.
The 20 of the 24 former MPPP Councillors should be required to be surcharged for the $70,000 lost by the Penang Island ratepayers for the disposal of the Mercedes Benz 200E to the former MPPP President
Last year, the MPPP spent $20,000 to spruce up the Mercedes Benz 200E before it was sold to the outgoing MPPP President for $25,000. Within less than a year, this Mercedes Benz has been resold at a price believed to be in the region of about $95,000.
This is a ‘golden handshake’ which has cost the Penang Island ratepayers at least $70,000. There is no justification whatsoever for such a ‘golden handshake’ and the DAP calls on the 20 of the 24 MPPP Councillors who were in last year’s Council and who made the ‘golden handshake’ decision to accept full responsibility for a bad decision which has caused unnecessary financial losses to the ratepayers.
The 20 of the 24 former MPPP Councillors should be required to be surcharged for the $70,000 lost by the Penang Island ratepayers for the disposal of the Mercedes Benz 200E.
If anyone of these 20 former MPPP Councillors in the present MPPP is not prepared to pay his surcharge (which works out to $3,500) ten he should be asked to resign from the MPPP altogether.
I hope there are those among these 20 MPPP Councillors who have the sense of responsibility to voluntarily announce that he is prepared to assume responsibility and reimburse $3,500 to the MPPP for his part of the loss.
The MPPP should make and announce a policy decision that the ‘golden handshake’ system will henceforth only apply to long-serving officials of at least 20 years’ service.
I hope the MPPP President, Tan Ghim Hwa, would table this proposal at the first meeting of the MPPP which he will chair to demonstrate that he is fully aware of his special assignment, which is to clean up the MPPP of its ‘decadence and impotence’.