At a time of economic stringency, the government should have kept within its operating and development budgets, instead of coming to Parliament in asking for additional allocation of funds.
What is being asked is not a small sum of money either, as the total sum for the 1983 and 1984 supplementary operating and development votes come to $2.4 billion.
Continue reading BMF Scandal – Token Prosecution and Punishments
A year ago, on 22.11.1983, I moved a $10—cut motion on the Finance Minister’s salary to protest in the strongest possible manner against the Government’s handling of the $2.5 billion Bumiputra Malaysia Finance (BMF) loans scandal in Hong Kong, as it had completely discredited the 2M administration’s two most popular slogans of ‘Clean, Efficient and Trustworthy’ Government and ‘Leadership by Example’.
Today, I am moving a second $10-cut motion again to protest against the new Finance Minister’s unprecedented ‘evasiveness’ and broken pledges of the Government to give a full accounting to the public about the BMF scandal, the government’s refusal to hold a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the scandal, and the government’s refused to take Parliament into its confidence about the BMF scandal. Continue reading BMF Scandal – Malaysia’s Watergate?
Speech by Parliament Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang in Dewan Rakyat on the 1985 budget on October 24, 1984
I congratulate the new Finance Minister, Daim Zainuddin, for delivering his maiden Budget last Friday – and if I am not mistaken, it was also his maiden speech in Parliament.
Daim Zainuddin’s budget has another distinction in that it provoked a public protest and demonstration in Johore Bahru on Sunday for its being a “rich man budget”, at a period of deteriorating economy and worsening poverty arising from escalating prices of essential foodstuff and scarcity of low-cost housing. Continue reading Daim’s Maiden Budget
I rise to move:
“That this House
“NOTES the repeated public statements of the Prime Minister and other top Cabinet Ministers of the Government’s resolve to bring to book the ‘culprits’ in the Bumiputra Malaysia Finance loans scandal;
“NOTES the call by the Chairman of the BMF Inquiry Committee, Tan Sri Ahmad Nordin, that a Royal Commission of Inquiry is the only forms of inquiry to establish if anyone is criminally liable in the BMF loans scandal after he had spent nine months to prepare the interim report of the BMF loans scandal;
“RESOLVES that a Royal Commission of Inquiry should be established to investigate into all aspects of the BMF loans scandal and to expose the BMF culprits who have caused Malaysia to lose some $2.5 billion.”
Continue reading Call for a Royal commission of Inquiry into the BMF Scandal
I am moving a motion to cut the salary of the Finance Minister by $10 to protest in the strongest possible manner against the Government’s handling of the $2,500 million Bumiputra Malaysia Finance (BMF) loans scandal in Hong Kong up to today. As the Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamed, has said that the Finance Ministry was and is at all material times responsible for Bank Bumiputra, and the BMF, and not the Prime Minister’s Department, I am moving this $10 cut against the Finance Minister’s salary and not the Prime Minister’s salary.
The Government’s handling of the BMF scandal has completely discredited the present administration’s two most popular slogans: ‘Clean, Efficient and Trustworthy’ Government and ‘Leadership by Example’. Continue reading BMF Scandal: The Seremban Declaration
I congratulate the Finance Minister, Tengku Razaleigh, and the other Cabinet Ministers for their great parliamentary performance or non-performance during the winding up for the 1984 Budget debate in the last two weeks, for they have completely belittled the dignity and purpose of the Parliament.
During the Budget debate, I spoke for more than an hour on the $2,500 million Bumiputra Malaysia Finance loans scandal in Hong Kong, for the whole sordid saga highlighted not only the negligence and irresponsibility of BMF directors and officials as well as Bank Bumiputra Directors, I also highlighted the irresponsibility and negligence as well of the various regulatory and supervisory bodies over Bank Bumiputra and BMF, like the Bank Negara, the Ministry of Finance, the Prime Minister’s Department, PNB, the Registry of Companies, the internal and external auditors, and even the entire Cabinet. Continue reading Cuckoo’s Land in Parliament
The Finance Minister’s 1984 Budget would probably go down in Malaysian history as the Budget which commanded the shortest span of public attention. It is not even a nine-day wonder, for after one’s day’s publicity, the Malaysian public returned to the greater preoccupation about the $2,500 million loans scandal of Bumiputra Malaysia Finance in Hong Kong, the biggest banking and financial scandal in the history of Malaysia since Merdeka.
I believe I am not the only one to be very disappointed by the failure of the Finance Minister. Tengku Razaleigh, to take the opportunity of the 1984 Budget presentation to make disclosures, either through his orang presentation or by way of an appendix to the Treasury report 1983/84, about the BMF scandal in Hong Kong in view of the colossal sum of public funds involved. Continue reading BMF Scandal- ‘Let the chips fall where they should’