Speech by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, at the official launching of the book: “BMF – The Scandal of Scandals” in Ipoh at a luncheon function on Wednesday, 30.4.1986
Refusal of Barisan Nasional government to support DAP motion to thank Ahmad Nordin Inquiry Committee a shameful episode for Barisan MPs
The three-man Ahmad Nordin BMF Inquiry Committee spent two years to probe into the $2.5 billion BMF Scandal, and completed its Final Reports in December last year.
When I gave notice in March to move a Parliamentary motion to express appreciation and thanks to the Ahmad Nordin BMF Inquiry Committee, the Government and Barisan MPs refused to give support by allotting time for debate.
This is most ungrateful and shameful episode for the Barisan MPs. However, although the Government and the Barisan MPs are not prepared to thanks the Ahmad Nordin Inquiry Committee for their reports, the ordinary Malaysian people hold the Inquiry Committee headed by Ahmad Nordin in high regard.
The Barisan Nasional Government and MPs even attacked Tan Sri Ahmad Nordin and XXX, for the Inquiry Committee does not uphold the Government’s official versions that only four persons are responsible for the BMF scandal – namely Lorraine Osman, Hashim Shamsuddin, Rais Saniman and Ibraham Jaffar.
The Inquiry Committee recommended further investigations and it is clear to anyone who read the Reports, that political personalities higher than these four BMF ‘culprits’ were involved in the BMF scandal.
The Barisan Nasional Government now wants to bury the BMF Final Report and make the people forget about the BMF scandal. This must not be allowed to succeed, for if the $2.5 billion scandal could be forgotten without getting to the bottom of the whole story, then it is likely that in future there would be repetition of such scandal on an even bigger scale.
The publication of this book, “BMF – Scandal of Scandals’ is to re-open public debate and discussion of the $2.5 billion BMF scandal, to let the Barisan government know that they must fully account to the Malaysian people about the biggest financial and banking scandal in Malaysian history.
Every Malaysian who cares about having a responsible, accountable and democratic government must get a copy of this book, ‘BMF – Scandal of Scandals’, for it is by knowing the full implication s and enormity of the crimes and breaches of trust involved in the scandal that there could be nation-wide pressure for further investigations to bring the real BMF culprits to book.
It must be a world ‘record’ that after losing $2.5 billion of taxpayers’ money in the BMF scandal, not a single person had yet been arrested in Malaysia. How could the Mahathir administration claim that it is committed to wipe out corruption, when it is nothing about the culprits in the $2.5 billion scandal?
In fact, the $2.5 billion BMF scandal is synonymous with the failure of the Mahathir government to live up to its slogan of a ‘clean, efficient and trustworthy government’.