by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Friday, 9th April 1993:
I had long stopped asking Liang Silt to resign as Transport Minister and had been asking Dr. Mahathir to remove him from the Cabinet
MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Silt, told the press yesterday that he would not heed my call on him to resign as Transport Minister because of the multiple scandals at the Transport Ministry, and in particular the Subang International Airport. ‘
He even retorted:”If there are 90,000 cases of automobile accidents in one year, does it mean I have to resign 90,000 times?”
Firstly, let me claify that I have long stopped asking Liong Sik to resign as Transport Minister for the multiple scandals in the Transport Ministry.
Liong Sik can comb through the statements I have made since the third security scandal at the Subang International Airport in less than a year – i.e. the death of Shamsul Ramli, 16, in the wheel bay of a Johannesburg-bound MAS jumbo jet on 15th March 1993 – and also concerning the fourth airport security scandal where Mohamed Arif, 25, breached the airport security within 24 hours of the airport inspec¬tion visit by the Deputy Prime Minister, Ghafar Baba, on March 30.
Liong Sik would have found that I had not made any call on him to resign as Transport Minister as I have reached the conclusion that Liong Sik is one of the thickest-skinned Ministers in Malaysia who has no sense of right or wrong or any conception of Ministerial responsibility and accountability.
Calls on a Minister to resign from -the Cabinet would only be meaningful if such a Minister is fully aware that his Cabinet position is not a right but a public trust, and once he had abused such a public trust, either because of irresponsibility or incompetence, he should gracefully relinquish his Ministerial appointment.
It is obvious that as far as Liong Sik is concerned, he has no notion whatsoever that a Minister is honour-bound to resign if he had failed to discharge his Ministerial responsibilities. Can Liong Sik explain in what circumstances would he feel compelled to resign as Transport Minister.
This is why Liong Sik had the cheek to retort yesterday as to whether he had to resign 90,000 times if there are 90,000 automo¬bile accidents in one year.
Liong Sik probably -thinks that he is even greater than a cat, which is supposed to have nine lives, in that he has 90,000 lives!
However, what is more serious is that he regards the four airport security scandals, like the Subang International Airport Fire Terminal One Fire last April which took three lives, the Subang Inter-national Airport Control Tower Fire last October which paralysed the Country’s civil aviation and cast the country hundreds of millions of ringgit of damage both in visible and invisible terms, as ordinary automobile accidents like knocking into the back bumper of another car.
This is why I have long stopped calling on Liong Sik to resign as Minister for Transport, for he lacks the personal honour, moral fibre and integrity of a political leader who is prepared to accept responsibility for the great blunders and scandals in his Ministry by submitting his resignation.
On the contrary, he is doing the reverse – wanting the people to believe that the.Subang International Airport security scandals like two fires in six months and three airport security
breaches in less than a month are very ordinary routine occurrences which nobody should be upset about.
This is why I have long stopped calling on Liong Sik to resign as Transport Minister, but directed my call to the Prime Minis¬ter, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, to remove Liong Sik as Transport Minister before more and bigger scandals erupt in the Transport Minis¬try.
Dr. Mahathir has more than ample reasons to remove Liong Sik as Transport Minister as the MCA President has exceeded his quota of Ministerial scandals – as five security scandals at the SubangInternational Airport in less than a year is a notorious record which no Malaysian Minister has reason to be proud.