Speech by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, at the Sekinchan DAP Branch Anniversary Dinner held in Sekinchan on Thursday, 4th August 1994 at 7 p.m.
The MCA leadership will disappoint the Chinese community if it does not hand over at least RM 20 million from the Huaren Fund account to the 60 Chinese Independent Secondary Schools during the Chinese New Year
The MCA leadership has promised Dong Jiao Zhong to hand over to the 60 Chinese Independent Secondary Schools from its Huaren Fund account all the donations it had collected for Chinese Independent Secondary Schools during the Chinese New Year early next year.
The MCA leadership will disappoint the Chinese community if it does not hand over at least RM 20 million from the Huaren Fund account to the 60 Chinese Independent Secondary Schools during the Chinese New Year early next year.
At the MCA ceremony to launch off its launching-off ceremony , the MCA leadership had already succeeded in getting donations totaling RM 3,188,888.88, which included RM 1 million donation each from Country Resort and Magnum Corporation and RM 1 million from the various MCA State Liaison committees.
Liong Sik said that the MCA would be getting another RM 6 million from the RM 6 million from the 600,000 MCA members, on the basis of RM 10 per member, by the end of the year.
If the MCA leadership could collect RM 3,188,888.88 during the launch-off of its nation-wide donation drive on May 27, there is no reason why it could not collect over RM 10 million in the nine months between May and January next year from the big-time donors with the attraction of tax-exemption status for donations channeled through Huaren Fund account.
These three figures added together should total at least RM 20 million by the Chinese New Year next year.
This is why I say that the MCA leadership will disappoint the Chinese community if it does not hand over at least RM 20 million from the Huaren Fund account to the 60 Chinese Independent Secondary Schools during the Chinese New Year early next year.
If the MCA leadership hands over only RM 6 million to the Chinese Independent Secondary Schools during the Chinese New Year from the RM 10 donation each from its 600,000 MCA members, then the MCA leadership must explain why it is holding back in the Huaren Fund account the RM 3,188,888.88 which it had already collected during the launching-off ceremony in Seremban on May 27.
If the MCA leadership hands over only RM 6 million plus the RM 3,188,888.88, then it has to explain why it has not collected a single sen from its nation-wide donation drive in the nine months from May to January next year.
After all, the reason why the MCA leadership had insisted that the donations it collects from the Chinese community for the Chinese Independent Secondary Schools should be placed in Huaren Fund Account is because such donations would enjoy tax-exempt status.
This tax-exempt status is meant for the big donors who will give RM 1 million or RM 2 million, or at least in the bracket or hundreds of thousands of ringgit.
Nobody will believe that the MCA leadership, after raising RM 3,188,888.88 during the launching-off ceremony for its nation-wide donation drive in Seremban on May 27, could not raise any more donations in the nine months from May to January next year to make use of the tax-exempt status for Huaren Fund account.
It is surprising that MCA has asked Dong Jiao Zhong to agree that the list of MCA donors should not be made public, when the MCA had made public the list of donors who had already donated RM 3,188,888.88 during the launching-off ceremony in Seremban on May 27.
As Liong Sik had expressed confidence that the MCA could raise RM 30 million in the MCA nation-wide donation drive for Chinese Independent Secondary Schools, the MCA leadership should try to hand over RM 30 million to the 60 Chinese Independent Secondary Schools.
Even if Liong Sik could hand over RM 30 million to the 60 Chinese Independent Secondary Schools during the Chinese new year, this will only constitute only five per cent of the RM 600 million required by the 60 Chinese Independent Secondary Schools for the next five years.