By Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjong, Lim Kit Siang, in Penang on Tuesday, 31 st August 1993:
Fifteenth Challenge to Liong Sik for him to accept within a week: To declare how many Telekom shares were allotted to MCA and if none, why four MCA Ministers could not compare with one MIC Minister who could get ten million Telekom shares for MIC
The one-week deadline for my first five challenges to MCA President, Datuk Seri Dr Ling Liong Sik, had expired and Liong Sik had failed all of them.
I am issuing my fifteenth and sixteenth challenges for Liong Sik to accept within a week and Malaysians are waiting to pass judgement as to how the MCA President will fare at the end of my series of challenges to Liong Sik.
My fixteenth challenge to Liong Sik is for him to declare how many Telekom shares were allotted to MCA as it is now claimed that the Government had allocated ten million Telekom shares to MIC in 1990.
IF A SMALL Barisan nasional component party like MIC could get an allocation of 10 million Telekom shares at RM5 per share, every other Barisan Nasional component party including MCA would have got their respective allocations.
The people and in particular the Malaysian Chinese community were entitled to know how many Telekom shares were allocated to MCA, what proxy companies had been formed to receive these Telekom shares, whether they are RM2 shell companies like Clearway Sdn Bhd and S.B. management dn Bhd as in the case of MIC’s 10 million Telekom shares, whether these shares had been sold ourt and what has happened to their proceeds.
Liong Sik should also declare how many Telekom shares were given to the other Barisan Nasional component parties in 1990, like UMNO, Gerakan, SUPP, PDBS, etc unless Liong Sik is completely in the dark about how many hundred of million of Telekom shares had been allocated to UMNO and what has happened to these allocations?
If Liong sik claims that the MCA did not get a single Telekom share, then he must explain whether this was because the MCA had rejected the allocation or because the Cabinet completely bypassed the MCA in the allocation of Telekom shares. If the latter, Liong Sik must explain why the four MCA Ministers cannot campare with one MIC Minister, Datuk Seri S Sammy Vellu, who could get the million Telekom shares allocation for the MIC.
Sixteenth Challenge to Liong Sik: Why he dare not say yes or no to my proposal that he enter into contract to pay RM500,000 compensation to educational or charitable purposes for any delay in bringing up my defamation suit for full hearing in three months or at the earliest possible date
My sisteenth challenge to Liong Sik is for him to declare why he dare not say yes or no to my proposal that he enter into a contract to pay RM500,000 compensation to educational or charitable purposes for any delay in bringing up my defamation suit against him for full hearing in three months or at the earliest possible date. I will enter into a similar reciprocal contract.
Liong sik should realize that he is not doing any good to his name, reputation and integrity by evading to give an answer to my challenge to him to neter into his RM500,000 contract.
In the first place, he has proved to be a political leader who dare not take legal action to defend his name, reputation and character although he believed that he had been publicly charged with the being corrupt. All he dared to do is to challenge me to lodge a corruption report against him with the Anti-Corruption Agency, after the ACA had cleared MIC President Samy Vellu in the MAIKA Telekom shares hijacking scandal.
Does Liong sik want to prove again that he dare not enter into a solemn contract to pay RM500,000 as compesantion for educational or charitable purposes so that a full hearing of my defamation suit over his baseless and defamatory statements about the DAP Save Bukit China Fund could take place in three months or at the earliest possible date – that he wants to drag out my defamation suit for years?
Instead of responding to my challenge, Liong sik’s cow dung counselors have advised the MCA President that the MCA should launch a counter attcek to question how I could have RM500,000 cash to make issue such a challenge.
I do not have RM500,000 cash to now or in three months time but I am fully serious in challenging Liong sik to neter into such a solemn contract as I am prepared to accept the Full consequences of such an undertaking – to pay the RM500,000 or face bankruptcy proceedings if I am at fault.
If I am declared bankrupt because I do not have the money to honour the agreement to pay RM500,000 for charitable or educational purposes because I have delayed the early full hearing of my defamantion suit against Liong Sik, I will be disqualified as Parliamentary Opposition Leader, MP and Assemblyman. In fact, iwould not get able to satnd for elective office so long as I remain bankrupt for being unable to pay RM500,000 for the educational or charitable purpose named by Liong Sik.
I am sure this is an outcome which would be beyond the wildest dream of the MCA Presidnet and his cow dung counselors.
In fact, I believe the MCA leadership would be prepared to pay many times RM500,000 if they could be sure of achieving the objective which would eliminate me from the political scane – as disqualifying me as MP and Assemblyman after I had not been decalred a bankrupt.
So, let Liong Sik respond to my sixteenth challenge that he enter into a RM500,000 challenge not to cause any delay so that my defamation suit against him could come up for full hearing in three months time or at the earliest possible date. If Liong Sik dare not respond to this challenge, he would be exposed as a coward who is hiding behind his lawyers to drag out my defamation suit for years to protect him form the immediate consequences of telling lies and character-assassinating me.