by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjong, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Friday, 17th June 1994:
If there is a Clients’ Charter for Ministers, Liong Sik will be the first to fail the test as Transport Minister
If there is a Clients’ Charter for Ministers providing preset standards of performance expected of Cabinet members, MCA President Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik will be the first to fail the test as Transport Minister.
How can Liong Sik expect public trust and confidence in him as a national political leader when he makes such a mess of the Transport Ministry?
His latest ‘mishandling’ of the motor insurance crisis in the country is a good case in point.
Last week, as a result of DAP pressure, Liong Sik announced that unless the motor insurance crisis caused by insurance companies refusing to provide insurance cover for vehicles over ten years old and commercial vehicles over five years old is resolved, he would be raising this issue at the Cabinet meeting this Wednesday.
After that, Liong Sik appeared every day over television explaining why it is unfair and unacceptable that motor insurance companies do not give protection of insurance policies to vehicles over 10 years old, as this would be tantamount to a policy decision condemning vehicles over ten years old.
However, at this week’s Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Liong Sik never uttered a word about the motor insurance crisis.
After the Cabinet meeting, Liong Sik said he did not raise the issue because it had been resolved as the Bank Negara had issued a directive to insurance companies not to reject insurance cover for vehicles over ten years old.
Liong Sik is misleading the motoring public when he claimed that this issue has been resolved or that Bank Negara had directed insurance companies to provide insurance cover for vehicles over ten years old.
Liong Sik has committed one of the biggest Ministerial blunders in recent Cabinet history
A Bank Negara spokesman had denied that Bank Negara had issued a directive to insurance company that they could not reject insurance cover for vehicles over ten years old – and insurance companies as well as the General Insurance Association of Malaysia (PIAM) have confirmed in the press today that Bank Negara had not issued such a directive.
Liong Sik has committed one of the biggest Ministerial blunders in recent Cabinet history!
How could a Minister of Transport, make such a big mistake as to whether Bank Negara had issued such a directive to insurance companies – causing him not to raise the motor insurance crisis in the Cabinet on Wednesday?
Wasn’t Liong Sik even capable of checking with Negara as to whether it had issued such a directive?
Liong Sik owes all Malaysians, and in particular the millions of motor vehicle-owners a full explanation as to how he could have blundered in such a colossal manner.
It is most regrettable that despite all the talk and publicity by Liong Sik on the subject, the motoring public who have vehicles exceeding ten years of age and commercial vehicles exceeding five years of age are still left in the lurch.
Liong Sik should give sole attention to resolve this motor insurance crisis so that he could announce its full resolution in time for the 45th Anniversary MCA General Meeting tomorrow – that all insurance companies had been given clear government directive that they cannot reject insurance cover for vehicles over 10 years old and the setting up of a complaints mechanism in every state where the motoring public can lodge complaints where motor insurance companies disobey and defy this directive.