Will Ong Tee Keat tender apology in next 24 hours for misleading Parliament in his eight-minute Ministerial statement on PKFZ scandal or I will move motion to refer him to Committee of Privileges

My three questions (No.70 to No. 72 on the 24th day in the current series) to Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat on the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal today are:

Question 1: Ong was a real disappointment with his Ministerial non-statement in Parliament on the PKFZ scandal in Parliament this morning.

His so-called Ministerial statement took eight minutes but he needed 40 minutes (i.e. five times the time he took in Parliament) in his press conference in the Parliament lobby to explain his Ministerial non-statement!

Why didn’t he spend these 40 minutes to give a proper, meaningful and comprehensive  statement on the “mother of all scandals” in his Ministerial statement in Parliament on the PKFZ scandal, especially as the Deputy Speaker, Datuk Dr. Wan Junaidi bin Tuanku Jaafar had told the press the previous day that there is no time limit to a ministerial statement and that the minister could take as long as he wanted?

I was quite impressed with Ong when I read the Chinese media reports of his statement yesterday that he welcomed questions and a debate on the PKFZ scandal during his ministerial statement in Parliament, and together with Wan Junaidi’s explanation, I had expected a very long session on the subject today.

Instead, despite repeated attempts on my part to seek clarification, Ong refused to yield the floor which caused my caustic remark in Parliament that Ong was “a hero outside but a coward in Parliament”.

Even worse, Ong’s ministerial statement was not a “tell all” but a “tell nothing” statement, revealing nothing that the public did not know about the PKFZ scandal.

Ong even misled the House when he said that the Cabinet, on Oct. 2, 2002, made the decision to allow the Port Klang Authority (PKA) to purchase 1,000 acres of land for RM1.08 billion at RM25 psf based on the position of  the Selangor state government that the land could not be acquired under Section 3(1)(a) of the Land Acquisition Act 1960 because PKFZ was not a public project.

I immediately pointed out that Ong had misled Parliament as he had not  referred to the Cabinet decision three weeks later on Oct. 23, 2002, that  the land should be acquired by the Transport Ministry through land acquisition under Section 3(1)(a) of the Land Acqusition Act  at the price of RM10.16 psf.

Ong could not deny what I said  but he was not prepared to confirm either – another instance of Ministerial irresponsibility and cowardice.

My first question to Ong is whether he would admit that he had deliberately misled Parliament about the Cabinet decision on the land acquisition of the PKFZ by failing to give a full and proper account of Cabinet decisions on the PKFZ project, and whether he would apologise for such parliamentary contempt and breach of privilege.

If Ong fails to tender a public apology in the next 24 hours, I will submit a motion to refer Ong to the Committee of Privileges for violating Standing Order 36(12) in deliberately misleading the House.

This what Deputy Speaker Junaidi said is the option before me, based on his understanding of the British War Minister, John Profumo scandal in the House of Commons when Profumo made a ministerial statement in Parliament which proved to be incorrect and untrue.

Question No. 2 – In his 8-minute Ministerial statement, Ong did not spent a single second on the causes and culprits of the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal. Is he suggesting that the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal – five times the RM2.5 billion Bumiputra Malaysia Finance (BMF) scandal – is a “heinous crime without criminals”?

Ong had told the Chinese media more than once that there is a need to restore PKFZ project  “from death to life”.  Who are the people who caused to RM4.6 billion PKFZ scandal to “die” that it has to be brought back to life?

How is Ong to reconcile with the reputation that he is an uncompromising fighter against all forms of abuses of power, misuse of public funds and corrupt practices when he dare not even say a word about the causes and culprits of the PKFZ “scandal of scandals”?

Question No. 3:  As the 83 Pakatan Rakyat MPs had all stood up at the end of Ong’s Ministerial statement in an unprecedented rejection of Ong’s Ministerial statement, is Ong prepared to give a second Ministerial statement in Parliament tomorrow or later this week to give a proper and satisfactory account of the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal?

                This entry was posted on Monday, 22 June 2009, 4:51 pm and is filed under
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Is the Najib Cabinet serious about a KPI culture of high-performance?

This morning, when Tsu Koon was giving his long answer to the question on KPIs for Ministers and ministries, the Ministerial front-benches were totally empty except for three Ministers who could not get elected and had to enter Parliament through the backdoor.

Is the Najib Cabinet serious about a KPI culture of high-performance?

If so, then no Minister should be allowed to abscond or go overseas from his or her  responsibility of accountability  to MPs when Parliament is meeting,  except for important international functions which could pass muster with Parliament!

When Parliament reconvened last Monday on June 15, the Transport Minister  Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat deliberately avoided parliamentary responsibility for the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal by flying off to France to attend the Paris Air Show.

Why is Ong’s attending the Paris Air Show more important than his appearance in Parliament to give a full, proper and satisfactory accounting for the PKFZ “mother of all scandals”?

The Paris Air Show at the Le Bourget Exhibition Centre  from June 15-21, 2009 celebrated its hundred anniversary, and is held biennially in odd-numbered years. Can Parliament know what were  the previous Paris Air Shows which were attended by a Malaysian Transport Minister? Or is Ong the first Malaysian Transport Minister to attend the Paris Air Show.

Can Ong give a report on what benefits had been achieved from his visit to the Paris Air Show and why he could not have sent the Deputy Transport Minister to set an example of giving top priority to parliamentary accountability duties?

Don’t tell me that attending international air shows is the top priority for the Malaysian Transport Minister!

I have here a list from Wikipedia of 33 international air shows, like the Paris Air Show, the Australian International Air Show, Berlin Air Show, Canadian International Air Show, Danish Air Show, Dubai Air Show,  Farnborough Air Show,  Iran Air Show, New York Air Show, the Moscow International Aviation and Space Salon.

Have the Transport Minister to attend all these Air Shows? Poor Transport Minister or poor 27 million Malaysians?

Speech by DAP Parliamentary Leader and MP for Ipoh Timor Lim Kit Siang on Tuesday, 23rd June 2009 in Parliament on the Finance Minister’s motion to reallot 2009 Budget among the various Ministries  following the 10th April 2009 Cabinet reshuffle.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 23 June 2009, 10:00 pm and is filed under
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Najib’s first 74 days as Prime Minister is the most uninspiring when compared with the past five Prime Ministers

This motion to re-allot the 2009 Budget among the various Ministries is the direct result of the Cabinet reshuffle by the new Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak on 10th April 2009 – a week after he replaced Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Najib should be enjoying his first two-and-a-half months as the new Prime Minister but there is no air of expectation, hope or euphoria  in the country that is normally associated with the advent of a new national leader – the political honeymoon of the First Hundred Days!

In fact, nobody can really disagree when I say that Najib’s first 74 days as Prime Minister is the most uninspiring when compared with the past Five Prime Ministers, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah!  Is this a sign of the final fulfillment of the most famous political prophecy in the country, RAHMAN, indicating the end of the line of Umno Prime Ministers in Malaysia as well as the end not only of Umno hegemony but Umno rule in Malaysia?

That we will know in the next general election, whether 2012 or 2011!

That there is no national mood of expectation, hope or euphoria; no political honeymoon  and no First Hundred Days on  Najib’s takeover as the sixth Prime Minister is not because of lack of trying by Najib.

In fact, Najib has tried very hard and this is why he has coined a new slogan to match the slogans of previous Prime Ministers, like “Clean, Efficient and Trustworthy” of Mahathir and “Cemerlang, Gemilang, Terbilang” of Abdullah. Najib’s slogan is “1Malaysia. People First. Performance Now”.

But Najib’s slogan has failed to take the country by storm, which was why Najib suffered a double “no confidence vote” four days after becoming Prime Minister on April 7, 2009 in the impressive Pakatan Rakyat victories in the Bukit Gantang parliamentary and Bukit Selambau state assembly (Kedah) by-elections – which was a  second political tsunami in Malaysian electoral politics in 13 months.

[Speech by DAP Parliamentary Leader and MP for Ipoh Timor Lim Kit Siang on Tuesday, 23rd June 2009 in Parliament on the Finance Minister’s motion to reallot 2009 Budget among the various Ministries  following the 10th April 2009 Cabinet reshuffle.]

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 23 June 2009, 5:56 pm and is filed under
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Najib facing deepening of the national and international crisis of credibility, integrity and legitimacy as 6th PM of Malaysia

The Bukit Gantang and Bukit Selambau by-election results, with increased majorities for the Pakatan Rakyat candidates as compared to last year, are a clear and unmistakable endorsement of the March 8, 2008 political tsunami telling the nation and the world that what happened in the 12th general elections in March last year was neither accidental nor a fluke, to disappear like fireworks in the skies, but a major political paradigm shift representing the deep-seated and widely-held aspirations of Malaysians regardless of race or religion for democratic change.

Furthermore, that such fundamental political change is here to stay!

Although UMNO and Barisan Nasional leaders had claimed after the March 8 political tsunami, which toppled Barisan Nasional governments in five states and ended its unbroken two-thirds parliamentary majority, that they had heard and learnt the message of the voters, the verdicts in the Bukit Gantang and Bukit Selambau by-elections were loud and clear – that UMNO and Barisan Nasional had failed in the past 13 months to heed the message of the 12th general election results.

This was why these two by-elections as well as the Penanti by-election in Penang early this month where the Pakatan Rakyat candidate, Mansor Othman who is now Penang Deputy Chief Minister, won with a 5,558-vote majority although Barisn Nasional did not dare to field a candidate, were  a multiple referendum, viz:

Resounding rejection of the undemocratic, unethical, illegal and unconstitutional power grab in Perak personally orchestrated by Najib in February, two months before he became the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia, creating a protracted political stalemate and constitutional crisis with two Mentris Besar – the legitimate and popularly-recognised Datuk Seri Mohamad Nizar Jamaluddin and the “usurper” and popularly-rejected Zambry,  two Speakers and a world-famous Perak State Assembly under the Democracy Tree in Ipoh.

The deepening of the national and international crisis of credibility, integrity and legitimacy faced by Najib since becoming the sixth Prime Minister because of his refusal to confront and come clean on the host of serious allegations haunting and hounding him, whether over the C4 murder case of Mongolian Altantuya Shariibuu or the defence deal mega-commissions through the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry.

[Speech by DAP Parliamentary Leader and MP for Ipoh Timor Lim Kit Siang on Tuesday, 23rd June 2009 in Parliament on the Finance Minister’s motion to reallot 2009 Budget among the various Ministries  following the 10th April 2009 Cabinet reshuffle.]

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 23 June 2009, 6:10 pm and is filed under
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PKFZ scandal – Ong Tee Keat caught red-handed telling an untruth on the RM1.2 billion KDSB variation order

My three questions (No.73 to No. 75 on the 25th day in the current series) to Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat on the
RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal
 today are:

Question No. 1: Port Klang Authority (PKA) Chairman Datuk Lee Hwa Beng made a very revealing and incriminating admission when he came to the defence of the Transport Minister, with reference to a letter by Ong to the Prime Minister dated May 10, 2008 after it surfaced on the Internet.

According to the New Straits Times,
 Lee clarified that the letter
 on RM1.2 billion variation order by  the PKFZ turnkey developer, Kuala Dimensi Sdn. Bhd (KDSB)  was not Ong’s request for more money to be approved but merely a relay of the PKA board’s decision (that they needed more money) to the prime minister.

“The letter from the transport minister dated May 10, 2008 to the then prime minister was to inform the latter that the PKA board had already deliberated and approved in February 2008, the final costs of the main development agreement of the contract with the developer.”

Lee said that the PricewaterhouseCoopers audit report did not mention the May 10, 2008 letter because the issue was not with the letter but rather the PKA board’s way of deliberating on agreements.

Lee distanced himself from the way the PKA Board deliberated the agreements and approved KDSB’s RM1.2 billion variation order by declaring:

“I wish to make it clear that I was not on the PKA board in February 2008 when it wrote to the transport minister asking for the RM1.2 billion”.

Lee is right that he was not the PKA Chairman when the PKA Board approved KDBS’s RM1.2 billion PKFZ variation order in February 2008. Who was the PKA Chairman when the PKA Board approved  the RM1.2 billion variation order, which was 21% higher than the original estimate of RM1 billion?

In actual fact,  KDSB also claimed professional fees of RM121.592 million calculated as a single 10% of the final amount of RM1.216 billion variation order, although this was not stipulated in the PKFZ development contract, resulting the final development cost to be increased by 33%, from the original estimated sum of RM1 billion to RM1.337 billion.

The PKA Chairman in February 2008 is none other than the present MCA Deputy Finance Minister, Datuk Chor Chee Heung.

My first question is why Ong continue to support Chor to evade and avoid responsibility and accountability with the latter’s stance that he had done nothing wrong or improper and need not resign or be suspended as Deputy Finance Minister?

Question No. 2:  In his 40-minute media conference in the Parliament lobby yesterday after his 8-minute Ministerial non-statement, Ong denied that his letter dated May 10, 2008 to the Prime Minister was to ask for approval for KDSB’s  RM1.2 billion variation order.

This is what he said, as reported by another New Straits Times report:

“There is
 no need to approve the RM1.2 billion
 since it was part of the RM4.3 billion soft loan granted by Finance Ministry to PKFZ and approved in 2007.

“It was a decision made before my tenure as transport minister. The question of my asking for extra funds does not arise.”

My second question is how this claim of his tallies with the l
ast paragraph of his letter to the Prime Minister dated 10th May 2008
, which read:

“6. Oleh yang demikian, saya pohon pertimbangan serta kelulusan YAB Datuk Seri ke atas perkara seperti tersebut di perenggan 3(i) dan 4.”

Perenggan 3(i) and (4) referred to KDSB’s RM1.2 billion variation order.

Does Ong agree that he has been caught red-handed telling an untruth on the PKFZ scandal?

Question 3:  I said yesterday that I would move a motion to refer Ong to the Committee of Privileges if he does not apologise within 24 hours for violating Standing Order 36(12) in deliberately misleading the House when he said that the Cabinet, on Oct. 2, 2002, made the decision to allow the Port Klang Authority (PKA) to purchase 1,000 acres of land for RM1.08 billion at RM25 psf based on the position of the Selangor state government that the land could not be acquired under Section 3(1)(a) of the Land Acquisition Act 1960 because PKFZ was not a public project.

This was because Ong had not referred to the Cabinet decision three weeks later on Oct. 23, 2002, that the land should be acquired by the Transport Ministry through land acquisition under Section 3(1)(a) of the Land Acqusition Act at the price of RM10.16 psf.

To be fair to Ong, I am extending the 24-hour notice to 48 hours before filing a motion to refer him to the Committee of Privileges. Is he prepared to come clean and admit that he had misled the House and had not given a full, proper and accurate account of the Cabinet decisions over the years on the PKFZ project?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 23 June 2009, 10:20 am and is filed under
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Unity govt a betrayal all around

by
Oon Yeoh

The Edge

The much-hyped, but now abandoned, unity-government concept, first touted by PAS President Datuk Seri Hadi Awang in March, and welcomed by all and sundry within Umno is a betrayal.

From Pakatan Rakyat’s perspective, it is a betrayal of voters’ trust. Malays who voted for PAS did so because they preferred it over Umno. Non-Malays who voted for PAS didn’t do so because they wanted PAS but because they rejected Umno. In either case, PAS teaming up with Umno is the last thing these Malay and non-Malay voters want.

By pushing for unity-government talks, the faction headed by PAS Deputy President Nasharuddin Mat Isa, is betraying PAS’ coalition partners DAP and PKR, which consider Umno the enemy (as do most of PAS’ grassroots).

Lastly, this faction is betraying PAS itself, which campaigned on a platform of a “welfare state”, with justness for everybody, not just Malays or Muslims.

What else could you call a PAS-Umno unity government but a race-exclusive government?

Those who are under the illusion that the unity talks could be aimed at setting up a national unity government involving all parties (including DAP and PKR together with MCA, MIC, Gerakan and a host of East Malaysian parties), should look back at what happened right after the March 8, 2008 general election.

Just days after the election, then-prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi held secret (now, not so secret anymore) unity talks – three such meetings were held according to Abdullah – with a PAS delegation that included Nasharuddin and the current Secretary-General Mustafa Ali.

The idea was for Selangor to be ruled by a new coalition between Umno and PAS. According to PAS MP Khalid Samad, who was present at the first meeting, former Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Khir Toyo was willing to become deputy MB and accept Selangor PAS Commissioner Hassan Ali as MB.

Khalid told Singapore’s Straits Times last July that during the meeting, the Umno side played up the racial issue, voicing concerns over DAP coming to power and the possible erosion of Malay rights and power.

Straits Times reported that other PAS insiders said Umno wanted PAS to cooperate with it in the states ruled by the Islamic party, like Kelantan, Kedah and Perak, and sideline its partners in Pakatan Rakyat. In return, PAS was promised that it would be able to dictate certain terms, such as its choice of MB.

This is the kind of “unity talks” we are talking about. So, if certain factions within PAS were to push on with such unity talks, their actions would be nothing less than a betrayal of voters (both Malay and non-Malay), of its coalition partners, and of the Islamic party itself.

And what of the Umno side, with so many of its leaders jumping on the unity-talks bandwagon?

Umno President and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak got the ball rolling by welcoming such talks. Despite initially being wary and lukewarm about such talks, Umno Deputy President and Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin very quickly changed tack and infamously stated, “We will not impose any conditions and we accept whatever terms set by PAS. As far as I’m concerned, we have to be open.”

Such openness, apparently does not extend to PR component parties DAP and PKR. Deputy International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir made it clear that both those parties were not welcome to the talks.

He even rationalised the need for Malay-unity talks on the grounds that Najib’s 1Malaysia concept hinged on it. “If they are not united, how are we going to realise the 1Malaysia concept?” he said. “This will be detrimental not only to the Malays but also to other races.”

Going by his warped logic, Mukhriz should support a gathering that involves DAP, PKR, MCA, Gerakan, MIC and East Malaysian parties but excluding PAS and Umno. The purpose of such talks? Non-Malay unity, for the sake of achieving 1Malaysia. You can imagine the ridicule that proposal would draw.

Umno leaders who harp on Malay-unity talks are not only betraying the 1Malaysia concept but their partners in Barisan Nasional, whom they know only too well, are now so weak that they can’t say a word against the notion of being sidelined by Umno in favour of PAS.

Their unwillingness to object to Malay-unity talks is a betrayal to the very constituency they are supposed to represent. Not a word on this matter has been heard from Gerakan President Tan Sri Koh Tsu Koon who is the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department for National Unity. Note that it’s “National Unity” not “Malay Unity”.

Datuk Seri Samy Vellu offered the lame proposal of Indian unity talks between MIC and various Indian parties and non-governmental organisations. Of course talking to DAP and PKR – both of which have elected Indian representatives at the state and federal level – is not on the cards.

But, MCA President Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat takes the cake by offering a red herring that would be laughable if it was not so weak: “We also want to know, through a dialogue, how far the DAP is committed to informing the people of its relationship with PAS. Whether the relationship is cordial or not.”

I’m sure there are many Chinese people who would like to know, through a dialogue, how far MCA is committed to informing the people of its relationship with Umno. Whether it’s one of subservience or not.

Malaysians may not have yet reached a stage where we can say we are colour blind, but the politicians who are pushing for, or tolerating, the so-called unity talks,  must be blind, deaf and dumb if they think the voting public can so easily have wool pulled over their eyes. Unity talks – which is just euphemism for race-based collusion – is a betrayal all around.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 23 June 2009, 6:29 am and is filed under
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What is the use of talking about KPIs and KRAs (key result areas) for the government servants when there is simply no high-performance culture among Cabinet Ministers?

The first Najib Cabinet saw the removal of seven Ministers in the old Abdullah Cabinet, namely Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar (Home); Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said (Tourism), Senator Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib (Rural and Regional Development), Senator Datuk Amirsham Abdul Aziz (Prime Minister’s Department), Datuk Ong Ka Chuan (Housing and Local Government), Datuk Mohd Zin Mohamed (Works) and Datuk Seri Zulhasnan Rafique (Federal Territories).

No one shed any tears for the dropping of the seven Ministers in the Abdullah Cabinet.

What outraged Malaysians is the new set of Ministers in the Najib Cabinet, for they are not only another set of “old faces” but include 11 new Ministers or Deputy Ministers who entered Parliament from the backdoor of the Senate.

Worse still, they include “political rejects” like Tan Sri Dr. Koh Tsu Koon, Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun and Datuk Dr. Awang Adek Hussin who were trounced by the electorate in last year’s political tsunami in the March 8 general elections, making the Najib Cabinet even more unrepresentative and unpopular than the second and last Abdullah Cabinet.

This morning, when answering the seventh question in the 90-minute question time, the KPI Minister, Tan Sri Dr. Koh Tsu Koon gave such a long answer that he killed supplementary questions as question time was up.

This was why I told Tsu Koon over the well of the House that he had failed his KPIs and KRAs, in hogging time in his long answer when he should have allowed supplementary questions to be asked.

What is the use of talking about KPIs and KRAs (key result areas) for the government servants when there is simply no high-performance culture among Cabinet Ministers?

Speech by DAP Parliamentary Leader and MP for Ipoh Timor Lim Kit Siang on Tuesday, 23rd June 2009 in Parliament on the Finance Minister’s motion to reallot 2009 Budget among the various Ministries  following the 10th April 2009 Cabinet reshuffle.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 23 June 2009, 9:45 pm and is filed under
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Why has Najib shied away from seeking a confidence motion in the House?

With every passing day, public confidence in the credibility, integrity and legitimacy of the Prime Minister has worsened, as illustrated by the two following indicators:

In an opinion poll conducted by opinion research firm Merdeka Centre in his second month as Prime Minister from May 6-15 on 1,067 registered voters,  Najib could only secure 45% popularity.

In poll on the blog of the MCA President, Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat, 78% of those polled wanted MCA to get out of Barisan Nasional.

Now Malaysians have even more reasons why they have no confidence, the credibility integrity and legitimacy of Najib as Prime Minister – the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal; galloping crime in the country with Malaysians, tourists and investors losing their fundamental rights to be free from crime and the fear of crime; worsening of the crisis of confidence in independence of the judiciary.

This was why I had called on Najib to seek a vote of confidence when Parliament reconvened on June 15.

This was what Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi did when he became the fifth Prime Minister in 2003, with Parliament passing a motion of confidence in him in his first week in office. This was also what Datuk Hussein Onn did when he took over as Prime Minister in 1976 when Tun Razak died of leukaemia in London, convening an emergency meeting of Parliament to secure a motion of confidence in him in his first fortnight in office.

But Najib has shied away from seeking a confidence motion in the House. Is Najib afraid that he would not be able to get the solid and united support for such a confidence motion from the BN MPs, who still constitute a comfortable majority although the BN has lost its two-thirds parliamentary majority?

[Speech by DAP Parliamentary Leader and MP for Ipoh Timor Lim Kit Siang on Tuesday, 23rd June 2009 in Parliament on the Finance Minister’s motion to reallot 2009 Budget among the various Ministries following the 10th April 2009 Cabinet reshuffle.]

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 23 June 2009, 9:20 pm and is filed under
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Parliament Video : Najib’s first 74 days as Prime Minister is the most uninspiring when compared with the past five Prime Ministers

Part 1 — Minister of Transport or “Minister of International Air Shows”?

Part 2 — “Backdoor Ministers”, KPIs and KRAs

Part 3 — 4 unlawful letters of support issued without the knowledge of Treasury?

Part 4 — RAHMAN political “prophesy:  – the end of BN (Umno) Prime Minister?

Part 5 — Pasir Salak : “Stone of a heart”

Part 6 — Crisis of credibility; Crisis of legitimacy; Crisis of integrity

Part 7 — Why has Najib shied away from seeking a confidence motion in the House?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 24 June 2009, 4:06 pm and is filed under
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Would Ong propose in Cabinet tomorrow that two former MCA Transport Ministers, Ling Liong Sik and Chan Kong Choy be prosecuted for abuses of power in unlawfully issuing four Letters of Support?

My three questions (No.76 to No. 78 on the 26th day in the current series) to Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat on the
RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal
 today are:

Question No. 1:

MCA-owned Star
, under the headline “Lim knows the facts, say Ong” reported:

PETALING JAYA: DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang deliberately misled the Dewan Rakyat on the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) issue despite knowing the facts of the project, Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat said.

Ong said Lim knew about the RM25 per square foot land purchase as he was engaged in the debate in Parliament, in 2007.

“He rudely interrupted my ministerial statement by accusing me of not referring to the Cabinet decision on Oct 23, 2002, that the land should be acquired at a lower price of RM10.16 per square foot.

“What Kit Siang conveniently omitted to mention was that the decision on Oct 23, was subsequently superseded by the Cabinet in its meeting on Nov 6, 2002,” he said in his blog (www.teekeat.net) yesterday.

Ong challenged Lim to admit that he had deliberately misled and confused the public by failing to disclose the full and proper account of Cabinet decisions on the PKFZ project.

“The DAP leader may not be a Cabinet member but the Parliamentary Hansard, dated Sept 4, 2007, clearly recorded that the decision of the Cabinet on Oct 2, 2002 to purchase the land at RM25 per square foot continued to stand for the reasons mentioned in my parliamentary statement,” he said.

Ong said Lim knew this and he was in fact engaged in a debate on this matter on Sept 4, 2007.

“He even posted excerpts of the Hansard in his blog the very next day.

“And yet he chose to suppress this important fact from the public for the sake of a political gimmick bent on rescuing his fading political career,” Ong said.

I am very surprised as this must be the first case not only in Malaysia but Commonwealth parliamentary history where a Cabinet Minister accuses an Opposition MP for not telling the whole truth about Cabinet decisions on a project, in this case the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal!

Ong claims to be incensed that I had not mentioned the Nov. 6, 2002 Cabinet meeting when he was presenting his Ministerial statement in Parliament on Monday.

How could I do so when even to mention the Oct. 23, 2002 Cabinet decision, there were so many protests and objections  from the Barisan Nasional Ministers and MPs, led by Ong himself and fully supported by the Deputy Speakers Ronald Kiandee and Wan Junaidi?

Did Ong allow me to talk and reveal more? Didn’t he take the position that with regard to his ministerial statement, no question or interruptions were allowed?

If Ong is claiming that I had misled Parliament, dare he move a motion to refer me to the Committee of Privileges?

This is my first question.

Second Question: Is Ong prepared to present a second Ministerial statement by Monday on all the Cabinet meetings and decisions on the PKFZ scandal right from the beginning, including the Cabinet meetings on the PKFZ on Oct. 2, Oct. 9, Oct. 16 and October 23 as well as on Nov. 6, 2002 as well as in July 2007 when the Cabinet decided on the RM4.6 billion bailout of the PKFZ scandal, which has turned out to be grossly inadequate as it has topped RM7.453 billion and heading towards the astronomical cost of RM12.453 billion?

Third Question:

Does Ong agree that his two predecessors as Transport Minister, Datuk Seri (now Tun) Dr. Ling Liong Sik and Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy had committed gross misuse of power in issuing four Letters of Support , i.e. on 28th May 2003, 23rd April 2004, 8th December 2005 and 23rd May 2006  to guarantee  bonds up to RM4.6 billion when they had no power to do so and the four Letters of Support had to be given retrospective approval by the Cabinet in July 2007 and landed the country with the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal.

Would Ong propose at the Cabinet tomorrow that Ling and Chan should be charged in court for gross abuses of power resulting in the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 24 June 2009, 5:58 pm and is filed under
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52 years of nationhood, 1Malaysia smashed into smithereens by Najib

Kit Siang mocks Najib over Malay unity plea to PAS

By Shannon Teoh

The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, June 25 — The DAP’s Lim Kit Siang challenged what he feels is the absurdity of Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s call for Malay and Muslim unity, and mocked the prime minister by asking today if Umno would give the nod to Chinese unity talks or similar discourse for other communities as well.

“Is he saying it is okay for Chinese unity talks? Indian, Kadazan, Iban unity talks?” the DAP parliamentary leader questioned.

The Pakatan Rakyat (PR) man was commenting on Najib’s plea yesterday for PAS to revive the idea of a unity government with Umno for the sake of Malay and Muslim unity.

On Monday, PR leaders rejected Umno’s unity government proposal, and proclaimed all issues surrounding the fiasco which brought the fledgling opposition coalition on the brink of collapse resolved.

But the Umno president, in asking PAS not to reject a proposal which would be beneficial to Malay Muslims, had yesterday dismissed the notion that a unity government between the two Malay parties would fly in the face of his 1 Malaysia concept despite concern from non-Muslim groups, including political parties in his Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.

Lim slammed this as ridiculous.

He said a Malay unity agenda would definitely defeat 1 Malaysia which aims to unite all Malaysians.

“We should have Malaysian unity talks instead,” the Ipoh Timur MP stressed, saying that PR continues to be open to discuss pressing national issues in the interest of the country.

He also challenged non-Malay leaders of BN component parties to declare their stand clearly on the matter.

“Do Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat and Tan Sri Koh Tsu Koon agree that Malay unity talks are not against 1 Malaysia? Why are they so silent on this matter?” he asked.

———

Kit Siang: Unity talk IS against 1Malaysia

By Tarani Palani | Jun 25, 09 12:09pm

Malaysiakini

DAP’s parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang today said he did not understand how a Malay unity talk proposed between Umno and PAS was not against the concept of 1Malaysia.

He was referring to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak who rejected talks that the proposed unity government between Islamic based PAS and Malay party Umno would go against his 1Malaysia concept.

“The 1Malaysia concept is beyond politics and non-Muslims need not worry if there is indeed a unity government,” he had said yesterday.

Najib’s 1Malaysia concept which he introduced when he assumed power in March is deemed to see Malaysians as one.

Commenting on Najib’s remarks, Lim said he was caught by surprise with the prime minister’s stand that a unity government between Umno and PAS would not go against the 1Malaysia concept.

He asked if the prime minister would then approve other races from opposing political divides to hold their own unity talks.

“Is Najib saying it is alright with Chinese unity talks or Indian unity talks…Iban unity talks?” he asked at a press conference in Parliament today.

Why the silence?

Lim also asked why the other BN component parties were silent on the proposed unity government between Umno and PAS.

“I want to ask MCA, Gerakan, MIC, SAPP. Do you agree that Malay unity talks are not antithetical of the concept of 1Malaysia?

“Why are they so silent on the matter?” he questioned

Lim said that he was prepared to talk about issues that were of national interest, like the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal and the judiciary.

He added that he has voiced this intention in Parliament before. He asked if Najib was willing to hold talks to discuss such matters.

The issue of unity talks leading to the formation of a unity government between Umno and PAS surfaced when the idea was sounded out by PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang early this month. Hadi was also backed by his deputy Nasharuddin Mat Isa.

However several other PAS leaders and Pakatan Rakyat leaders were against such talks. Last week Pakatan rejected holding unity talks with Umno.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 25 June 2009, 2:11 pm and is filed under
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PKFZ scandal – Is OTK so useless he cannot ensure that the 300 copies of PwC report and appendices on RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal are tabled in Parliament on Monday

My three questions (No.79 to No. 81 on the 27th day in the current series) to Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat on the
RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal
 today are:

Question No. 1
: This is the end of the second week of Parliament, which will adjourn next Thursday on 2nd July following a  two-day extension.

Ong, who had absconded to France for the Paris Air Show instead of being Parliament when it met on June 15 to give an accounting of the PKFZ scandal, has now put up a great show  of his commitment to the principles of accountability, transparency and integrity by claiming that 300 copies of the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) audit report and appendices on the PKFZ scandal have been sent to Parliament for MPs – but not a single MP whether from Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat has received it.

Ong may be trying to become a David Copperfield in Malaysian Parliament – conjuring up 300 sets of the PwC report and appendices which MPs cannot touch, see or read!

Is Ong so useless as Transport Minister, but good as Minister for Air Shows, that he could not even ensure that MPs and the media  are instantly given copies of the PwC Report and Appendices?

Since I became a MP in 1969, I have not come across a more lame excuse than the one given by Ong that the PcW report and appendices have not been tabled in Parliament because it is up to  the Parliament Secretary, Datuk Roosme binti Hamzah to decide how and when to table them in Parliament. No other Minister had ever used such an excuse because it is just silly and stupid.

If the Transport Minister today writes officially to the Parliament Secretary that the PwC report and appendices be tabled immediately for all MPs, Datuk Roosme would comply and the PwC report would be on the table of all MPs the next morning.

With his long years in Parliament and government, Ong could not be ignorant of this.

Why then he is going along with this charade that he is utterly powerless to decide whether the 300 copies of the PwC report and appendices on the PKFZ scandal is given to all MPs without any further delay, and that it is in the hands of the Parliament Secretary?

What is the use of being a Transport Minister when he is even powerless to ensure that MPs are immediately given copies of the PwC report and appendices?

The reason is simple.  Ong wants the present arrangement to continue, which is that the 300 copies of the PwC report and appendices of the PKFZ scandal are not given to MPs until the end of the year, purportedly as part of the Public Accounts Committee report on PKFZ. This is because nobody expects any PAC report on PKFZ until the 35-day budget meeting of Parliament from Oct. 19 to Dec. 15, 2009.

My first question to Ong is whether he is so useless and powerless a Transport Minister that he cannot ensure that the 300 copies of PwC report and appendices on RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal are tabled in Parliament on Monday instead of collecting dust till end of the year?

Question No. 2
: I have yesterday submitted a motion to refer Ong to the Committee of Privileges for misleading Parliament in his eight-minute Ministerial statement (really a non-statement) on the PKFZ scandal on Monday, 22nd June 2009.

As Ong also accused me of misleading Parliament, has he submitted a motion to refer me to the Committee of Privileges?

Shall we jointly approach the Speaker, Tan Sri Pandikar Amin, to ask that both these motions of privilege be given top priority so that they are debated next Monday and that both motions, his and mine, be debated together?

Question No. 3
: Former MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Seri (now Tun) Dr. Ling Liong Sik signed the first of four unlawful Letters of Support forcing the Cabinet in July 2007 to decide on a  RM4.6 billion bailout of PKFZ which has now ballooned into a RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal. Does Ong know why Ling signed the Letter of Support on May 28, 2002, which was his last act on his  last day as  Transport Minister?  Did he ever ask Ling for the reason?

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 25 June 2009, 11:49 am and is filed under
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RM12.5 billiion PKFZ scandal – Parliament entitled to know the reasons why the Cabinet chopped and changed week-by-week its decision in October/November 2002 on the PKFZ land issue

Today’s Star under the report “
PKFZ probe under wraps for now
” reads:

Malaysian Anti-Corruption (MACC) is not obliged to disclose the progress of investigations into the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

PAC member William Leong (PKR-Selayang) said MACC Commissioner had informed the PAC that the PKFZ issue was still under probe and Section 29 of the MACC Act 2008 does not allow the commission to disclose any information about the investigation to the PAC.

Unfortunately we were unable to get any information as to the situation of the investigation, when the investigation will end and whether any action would be taken against anyone,” he said.

Leong said he was disappointed with MACC’s reply, adding that several reports over the PKFZ were lodged with MACC, or ACA, since w2004.

Chief Commissioner Datuk Seri Ahmad Hamdan had spent an hour at the PAC meeting yesterday but did not reveal the investigation into the alleged irregularities in PKFZ.”

What the MACC Chief Commissioner had committed is no less than parliamentary contempt in refusing to co-operate with the PAC in its investigations into the PKFZ scandal.

Why is Ahmad suddenly so shy about reporting the progress of MACC investigations into the PKFZ scandal when he had no hesitation to go to the public about MACC investigations  into the allegations of abuses of power and corrupt practices against the Pakatan Rakyat Selangor Mentri Besar, Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim over cars and cows?

The MACC should rightly stand for “
Malaysian Agency for Cars and Cows
”!

The MACC has proved its utter lack of independence when it could be dragooned into serving the Barisan Nasional political agenda in its illegal power grab in Perak to harass the legitimate Pakatan Rakyat Perak Speaker V. Sivakumar.

The Star today has another report, headlined: “
Lim Know the facts, say Ong
“, which reads:

PETALING JAYA: DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang deliberately misled the Dewan Rakyat on the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) issue despite knowing the facts of the project, Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat said.

Ong said Lim knew about the RM25 per square foot land purchase as he was engaged in the debate in Parliament, in 2007.

“He rudely interrupted my ministerial statement by accusing me of not referring to the Cabinet decision on Oct 23, 2002, that the land should be acquired at a lower price of RM10.16 per square foot.

“What Kit Siang conveniently omitted to mention was that the decision on Oct 23, was subsequently superseded by the Cabinet in its meeting on Nov 6, 2002,” he said in his blog (www.teekeat.net) yesterday.

Ong challenged Lim to admit that he had deliberately misled and confused the public by failing to disclose the full and proper account of Cabinet decisions on the PKFZ project.

“The DAP leader may not be a Cabinet member but the Parliamentary Hansard, dated Sept 4, 2007, clearly recorded that the decision of the Cabinet on Oct 2, 2002 to purchase the land at RM25 per square foot continued to stand for the reasons mentioned in my parliamentary statement,” he said.

Ong said Lim knew this and he was in fact engaged in a debate on this matter on Sept 4, 2007.

“He even posted excerpts of the Hansard in his blog the very next day.

“And yet he chose to suppress this important fact from the public for the sake of a political gimmick bent on rescuing his fading political career,” Ong said.

I find this accusation by Ong, more appropriately referred to as the Minister for Air Shows, most astounding.

It  must be the first case not only in Malaysia but in Commonwealth parliamentary history where a Cabinet Minister accuses an Opposition MP for not telling the whole truth about Cabinet decisions on a project, in this case the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal!

Ong claims to be incensed that I had not mentioned the Nov. 6, 2002 Cabinet meeting when he was presenting his Ministerial statement in Parliament on Monday.

How could I do so when even to mention the Oct. 23, 2002 Cabinet decision, there were so many protests and objections from the Barisan Nasional Ministers and MPs, led by Ong himself.

Did Ong allow me to talk and reveal more? Didn’t he take the position that with regard to his ministerial statement, no question or interruptions were allowed?

Yes, I knew about the November 4, 2002 Cabinet meeting, but it was Ong who misled Parliament with a selective account in his Ministerial statement while refusing to allow me to say anything to correct him.

This is why I had challenged Ong to give a full account of all the Cabinet meetings and decisions in connection with the PKFZ project all the way back to 1999, especially the Cabinet decisions of October/November 2002 and July 2007.

PKFZ concerns not only the Transport Ministry but also the Finance Ministry. I hereby ask the Deputy Finance Minister, Datuk Dr. Awang Adek, who was also the Deputy Finance Minister in 2007, to give a full account in his reply of all the Cabinet meetings and decisions on PKFZ right from the very beginning.

In particular, Awang should state whether he could confirm the following Cabinet meetings and decisions:

On 2nd October 2002, Cabinet agreed to the purchase of the land for the PKFZ project based on Transport Minister’s information that the project was viable and did not require any government financial assistance and that legal issues surrounding the land concerned had been  resolved.

On 9th October  Cabinet agreed to  defer implementation of the Oct. 2 decision, pending reports by Finance Ministry and Attorney-General’s Chambers.

On 16th Oct. 2002, Cabinet informed of Attorney-General’s position that the land had too many encumbrances and “willing buyer, willing seller” transaction not proper. Finance Ministry asked to submit report.

On 23rd October 2002, Cabinet agreed that land be acquired by Transport Ministry under section 3(1)(a) of Land Acquisition Act 1960 at RM10.16 psf. Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd (KDSB) to be given the opportunity to level and build basic infrastructure at a price to be negotiated and to be finalized by the Finance Ministry if it is above RM100 million. Among the  reasons why the Cabinet reversed the Oct. 2, 2002 decision were:

The land has too many encumbrances with at least eight charges and five caveats and that Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd (KDSD)  had made misrepresentation which may be fraudulent misrepresentation;

That the issue of “willing buyer and willing seller” does not arise as KDSB was  unable to transfer title free from encumbrance to the government;

That from corporate information, KDSB was  a company with bank liabilities.

On 6th November, 2002 Cabinet reversed its decision of Oct. 23, 2002 and upheld its Oct. 2, 2002 decision.

Parliament is entitled to know what were the reasons which caused the Cabinet to chop and change week-by-week its decision on the PKFZ land question, which has landed the country with a RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 25 June 2009, 3:01 pm and is filed under
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RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal – the great expose in Parliament

Part 1 — Najib’s achilles heel

Part 2 — BN’s crisis of confidence : BN leaders have eyes that see not, ears that hear not, mouth that speak not or talk rubbish.

Part 3 — 1st case in Commonwealth parliamentary history where a Cabinet Minister accuses an Opposition MP for not telling the whole truth about Cabinet decisions on a project

Part 4 —

Part 5 —

Part 6 —

Part 7 —

Part 8 —

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 25 June 2009, 3:45 pm and is filed under
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“You Are Not Qualified To Interpret my Religious Text”: How to Respond to Attempts to Close the Public Domain- Part 3

 By
Farish A. Noor

These days we often hear the accusation that someone or another is doing something nasty by interpreting a book or text out of context. The common refrain that follows goes something like this: “Who are you to interpret our holy book on your own without the guidance of our supreme religious elders who are so knowledgeable in scriptural knowledge that your own petty knowledge is like that of a gnat’s in comparison?” From this bombastic salvo there usually follows the same train of accusations and slander, which include the following: Muslim/Christian/Buddhist/Hindu feminists are simply reading and re-reading the holy scriptures with their own agendas in mind; that they are engaged in wilful and unregulated interpretation that goes against orthodoxy, etc.

Before we deal with the political nature and consequences of such accusations, let us return to the original premise and deconstruct it a bit.

Interpretation, of any text, is necessarily a subjective, historically-determined and culturally-contextualised endeavour. Every act of reading is necessarily subjective and therefore contingent and we cannot escape from the possibility of error, misinterpretation and misappropriation. This is true of reading a holy scripture as it is true about reading the menu of a restaurant, for the fact is that reading is necessarily a risk-laden enterprise and this has more to do with the nature of language as a social phenomena than anything else.

Going back to the genesis of all the major religious belief-systems in the world, we see that the foundational movement of such religions entailed the act of reading and interpretation. From the very outset of revelation itself, the possibility of error and misunderstanding has always been there. This is simply because communication – even in the case of divine communication with mortal beings – carries with it the risk that the message may get lost.

With the passing of time however, religious texts in particular gain a certain degree of consistency in meaning because of the way that the reading, interpretation and dissemination of such texts is left in the hands of a few, who in turn are elevated to the status of experts. In the history of the Jewish faith, for instance, the interpretation of Jewish scripture was monopolised by the Rabbinical classes; until the advent of Jesus who was the first to challenge the hegemonic grip of Rabbinical authority. Likewise in Hinduism, the interpretation of Vedantic texts was left in the hands of the Brahminical classes, and only challenged by the likes of the Buddha who trespassed the norms of the discursive economy with his emphasis on the emotional-spiritual (as opposed to ritualistic) development of the individual. In the Islamic tradition, the monopoly over religious textual interpretation was guarded by the Ulama classes, but often challenged by independent lay scholars who opened up and expanded the space of Muslim religious discourse and praxis.

It is therefore ironic that today Muslim women’s groups like Malaysia’s Sisters in Islam are deemed to have gone beyond the pale of religious normativity by allegedly interpreting the Quran in a manner that goes against tradition or the sanction of the religious scholars. But hasn’t this been the case with so many other Muslim intellectuals who were in fact pioneers in the process of modernising the Muslim mind?

If groups like Sisters in Islam are deemed guilty of ‘freely interpreting’ religious scripture, then what would we have to say about men like Jamaluddin al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, and Sir Syed Ahmad Khan? Syed Ahmad Khan – who founded the Aligarh Muslim University – was one of the first who claimed that unless and until Islamic thought could be measured and judged by the standards of modern science it would not survive the modern age. For his efforts to modernise our understanding of Islam, he was deemed a materialist and secular thinker; yet he was the one who built the first modern Islamic university in the world, that proudly stands until today at Aligarh, India.

Likewise Abul Alaa Maudoodi and Sayyid Qutb were also Muslim thinkers well ahead of their time who broke from sedimented traditions and who offered radically new and modern interpretations of Islam in their time. And when we look at their profiles, they were certainly not traditional ulama by any stretch of the imagination: Maudoodi was trained as a journalist and worked as a pamphleteer and propagandist for his cause. Qutb, on the other hand, was even accused of desecrating the Quran by offering an activist-oriented exegesis of the text that went against customary practice then. But today, does anyone doubt the impact that both Maudoodi and Qutb have had on contemporary Muslim thought and praxis?

Closer to Southeast Asia we have thinkers like Syed Sheikh al-Hady and Sheikh Tahir Jalaluddin who were modern thinkers who wanted to adapt the Muslim mindset to the needs of the modern age. Syed Sheikh al-Hady even wrote the Hikayat Faridah Hanum, which remains as the first modern feminist novel in vernacular Malay literature. For his pioneering efforts to emancipate Muslim women from patriarchal tyranny, he too was deemed a secularist and modernist by the conservatives among his peers. But do we doubt or deny his achievements, or the achievements of any of these modernist thinkers today? Certainly not.

So let us clear the decks and understand some simple truths about textual analysis and exegesis: Reading anything – be it a novel or a holy book – is necessarily a subjective process that is always going to be particular, historically specific and necessarily contingent. No text can escape this, for the reason that reading involves an inter-subjective process of engagement with an author that is not present. We can try our best to remain true to the intended meaning of the text, but we cannot ever claim to have complete knowledge of it.

On that basis, no group can claim to have a monopoly over truth value, and no group can claim to be right simply because they have settled on an agreed consensus. Traditional conservative scholars who live, work and interact only among themselves and their closed circle of confidants and acolytes may think that they have closed off the process of interpretation simply because they have engineered a consensus among themselves; but this does not mean that the process of reading and interpretation is over and closed for good. Furthermore consensus does not guarantee truth value, for even if the whole planet thinks that the earth is flat it does not make it so.

For the sake of keeping religious texts and scriptures alive and relevant to the needs of our times, alternative readings are required time and again. That was the intention of scholars like Maudoodi, Qutb, Ahmad Khan, Abduh and Sheikh al-Hady. And interestingly, that too happens to be the intention of religious activists like Sisters in Islam and other Muslim, Christian, Hindu and Buddhists activists today.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 26 June 2009, 8:43 am and is filed under
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Did the Cabinet discuss the scandalous million-ringgit fee to Jean Todt as Malaysia’s tourism ambassador or are the Cabinet Ministers deaf to the nation-wide howls of outrage when this news came out

Did the Cabinet which met this morning discuss the scandalous million-ringgit fee to former Ferrari Formula One owner Jean Todt as Malaysia’s tourism ambassador or are the Cabinet Ministers  totally cut off from the ground and deaf to the nation-wide howls of outrage when this news came out?

Did the Cabinet review the need  and efficacy of the million-ringgit payment to Todt and whole concept of appointing million-ringgit tourism ambassadors?

Parti Keadilan Rakyat MP for Gombak, Azmin Ali has said that the RM1 million fee to Todt, which has been confirmed by the Tourism Minister, Datuk Seri Ng Yen Yen, included an annual fee of RM593,000 and another RM388,000 to pay for Todt’s holidays in Malaysia.

How many tourist ambassadors ala-Todt have been appointed by the Tourism Ministry to date, and have they all been given million-ringgit fees? Who is actually the first tourism ambassador appointed by the Tourism Ministry?

And what is the really the rationale for the appointment of tourism ambassadors when the Tourism Ministry has tourism officers all over the world.

Surprisingly, the Public Accounts Committee Chairman, Datuk Azmi Khalid has kept his silence and not said anything about the PAC opening investigations into the issue of appointing million-ringgit tourism ambassadors.

In this connection, did the MCA and Gerakan Ministers raise objections in today’s Cabinet meeting at the answer given by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Senator Datuk Jamil Khair bin Baharom in Parliament  about the possibility of hudud being used to deal with snatch thieves.

MCA Publicity Bureau and the Gerakan Youth came out with a fierce attack on Jamil’s answer in Parliament, but all these statements are just meaningless political show and empty political P.R. (public relations)  if MCA and Gerakan Ministers dare not even raise strong objections in the Cabinet.

What have the MCA President Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat and Gerakan President Tan Sri Dr. Koh Tsu Koon got to say?  What have they done in the Cabinet to ensure that no UMNO or Barisan Nasional Minister or Deputy Minister would ever make such a statement on hudud in Parliament again?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 26 June 2009, 5:14 pm and is filed under
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Latest on RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal – A stonewall!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

                This entry was posted on Friday, 26 June 2009, 4:37 pm and is filed under
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Michael Jackson rest in peace

twitter @limkitsiang

Michael Jackson died. Whole generations in shock. Agree or disagree, he touched lives worldwide. Rest in Peace.

Farah Fawcett, Charlie Angels fame another star who died same day.Her intrepid fight against cancer helped many to look into “heart of darkness”

                This entry was posted on Friday, 26 June 2009, 11:13 am and is filed under
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Najib should present ministerial statement in Parliament on Monday on various current Petronas issues

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak should present a ministerial statement in Parliament on Monday on various current  Petronas issues – a new CEO, his insistence to appoint defaulter Omar Mustapha as Petronas director, declining Petronas profits and most important of all, a new regime of Petronas accountability to Parliament.

Recently, what is making waves in Petronas and well-informed local circles and reported internationally, though completely swept under the carpet by the local mainstream media, is the repeated attempts by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak  to force the appointment of his aide, Omar Mustapha as director of Petronas.

The Singapore Straits Times has reported that the
Petronas Board of Directors has rebuffed
 Najib’s attempt to foist the appointment of Omar for the second time this Wednesday, as the Board was directed by Najib to reconsider its decision last month rejecting Omar’s appointment.

The reason for the Petronas Board’s rejection of Omar as director is that Omar had defaulted on his  scholarship loan agreement with Petronas two decades earlier. Omar did not complete the required number of years of service with the national oil corporation or a related government agency as stipulated in his scholarship agreement. Petronas also initiated legal proceedings against Omar in 2001.

Najib should explain to Parliament why he is insisting on appointing a Petronas loan defaulter as a director of Petronas, as the widespread  objections to Omar’s appointment to the Petronas, now taking up by the Board, is fully justified and valid.

Furthermore, why as a former Petronas officer, Najib is so reckless about the adverse effect on the morale of serving and dedicated Petronas officers that would result from the appointment of a Petronas defaulter to the Petronas Board!

Parliament should also be informed whether the Prime Minister is looking for a new Petronas CEO to replace Tan Sri Hassan Merican.

Earlier, the name of former Home Minister, Datuk Seri
Syed Hamid Albar had been bruited as the  likely new Petronas CEO
.  In the last few days, another name has emerged: Datuk Mohd Bakke Salleh, the Felda Holdings group managing director, and that he is to understudy Hassan until the present Petronas CEO’s retirement next February.

Although the final decision of the new Petronas CEO rests with the Prime Minister, MPs from both sides of the divide should be given the opportunity to give their views on the possible candidates.

Parliamentarians, whether Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat, must also be given regular updates of Malaysia’s only company on Fortune 500, especially as Petronas has just reported a net profit decline by 13.9 per cent due to low oil prices and high production costs.

The group reported RM52.5 billion in net profit compared with RM61 billion the previous year although its  revenue increased by 18.4 per cent to RM264.2 billion compared with RM223.1 billion the previous year.

Petronas plays a critical and strategic role in the public finances of the country, as Petronas  paid out to the government RM74 billion in the financial year ending March 31, 2009  compared with RM61.6 billion the previous year, an increase of 20.1 per cent.

The payment represented 71.4 per cent of the group’s profit before tax, royalty and export duty of RM103.7 billion. Of the payment, RM30 billion was in the form of dividends and the rest in taxes, royalty and export duty.

Petronas contributions amounted to RM72.5 billion or 45 per cent of federal government revenue in the 2008 calendar year.

This is a very  high figure reflecting  the government’s heavy dependence on oil revenue, a situation which may not be sustainable or ideal for a country trying to develop an economy based on knowledge and innovation.

Petronas represents the biggest chink in the government’s armour in its  claim of accountability, transparency and good governance as the national oil corporation as presently constituted is totally not accountable to Parliament!

There is no annual Petronas report to Parliament. The Public Accounts Committee has not even dared to call up the Petronas CEO and President to give a proper accounting of his stewardship of Petronas.

If Najib is sincere in his motto of “1Malaysia, People First. Performance Now”, he should present to Parliament on Monday his proposal for a new regime of Petronas accountability to Parliament.so that there is meaningful monitoring and accounting  of the petro-ringgit in Parliament.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 26 June 2009, 12:36 pm and is filed under
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PKFZ scandal: Does Ong Tee Keat agree that the Speaker has put the cart before the horse in claiming that there is no point in tabling PwC report on PKFZ and appendices in Parliament without PAC report?

My three questions (No.82 to No. 84 on the 28th day in the current series) to Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat on the
RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal
 today are:

Question No. 1: The Star today reported the  Speaker,
Tan Sri Pandikar Amin as saying that the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report
 on the PKFZ scandal will only be tabled in Parliament together with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on PKFZ.

Pandikar said that without the PAC report, the PwC report on PKFZ would have no relevance if tabled.

The Speaker is putting the cart before the horse in claiming that there is no point in tabling the Pwc report on PKFZ and appendices in Parliament without the  PAC report.

Does Ong agree that without the benefit of the PAC report, there is no point in tabling the PwC report and appendices on the PKFZ scandal in Parliament?

It is unlikely that the PAC report on the PKFZ can be tabled in time for the current parliamentary meeting which ends on Thursday, 2nd July, 2009, and as there is no assurance that the PAC report would be tabled on the first day of the next parliamentary meeting on 19th October 2009, there is therefore a great  likelihood that the PAC report and PwC report and appendices are  only tabled in November or December 2009 if they  not pushed into 2010 altogether!

Does Ong agree that the PwC report and appendices should remain in the vaults of Parliament for next few months to collect dust?

My first question is why is Ong is so afraid of making the PwC report and in particular the appendices freely available to MPs and the public? What is Ong trying to hide?

Question 2:  The time has come for Ong to give a full account of the secret meeting of Barisan Nasional MPs at an undisclosed venue on the 5th May 2009 to get a special briefing on the PwC report on the PKFZ scandal.

Whose idea was it to organize such a special and secret briefing for BN MPs even before the PwC report was made public, who were  the MPs who attended, whether from Umno, MCA, MIC, Gerakan or the Sabah and Sarawak Barisan Nasional component parties, who gave the briefing, who paid for the briefing, and were the BN MPs assigned to defend the PKFZ issue in Parliament?

Question No. 3 – In Parliament on Wednesday, 24th June 2009, I had asked the Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Dr. Awang Adek Hussain to give a full account to Parliament on all the Cabinet meetings and decisions on the PKFZ, and in particular to confirm or deny the following Cabinet meetings and decisions:

On 2nd October 2002, Cabinet agreed to the purchase of the land for the PKFZ project based on Transport Minister’s information that the project was viable and did not require any government financial assistance and that legal issues surrounding the land concerned had been  resolved.

On 9th October  Cabinet agreed to  defer implementation of the Oct. 2 decision, pending reports by Finance Ministry and Attorney-General’s Chambers.

On 16th Oct. 2002, Cabinet informed of Attorney-General’s position that the land had too many encumbrances and “willing buyer, willing seller” transaction not proper. Finance Ministry asked to submit report.

 On 23rd October 2002, Cabinet agreed that land be acquired by Transport Ministry under section 3(1)(a) of Land Acquisition Act 1960 at RM10.16 psf. Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd (KDSB) to be given the opportunity to level and build basic infrastructure at a price to be negotiated and to be finalized by the Finance Ministry if it is above RM100 million. Among the  reasons why the Cabinet reversed the Oct. 2, 2002 decision were:

The land had too many encumbrances with at least eight charges and five caveats and that Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd (KDSD)  had made misrepresentation which may be fraudulent misrepresentation;

That the issue of “willing buyer and willing seller” does not arise as KDSB was  unable to transfer title free from encumbrance to the government;

That from corporate information, KDSB was  a company with bank liabilities.

 On 6th November, 2002 Cabinet reversed its decision of Oct. 23, 2002 and upheld its Oct. 2, 2002 decision.

Can Ong confirm or deny these Cabinet meetings and decisions on PKFZ? If the former, can Ong explain why the Cabinet had “flip-flopped”, chopped and changed week-by-week on its decisions on the PKFZ question, landing the country with a RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 26 June 2009, 10:50 am and is filed under
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Does Ong agree that Parliamentary Standing Orders be amended to bar Deputy Ministers from replying in Parliament, making it compulsory for Ministers to personally respond on behalf of government?

My three questions (No.85 to No. 87 on the 29th day in the current series) to Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat on the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal today are:

Question No. 1:
 Why is Ong continuing to evade the issue that up to now despite two weeks of parliamentary meeting, MPs have not received copies of the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) audit report and appendices on the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal?

Somehow Ong, who claims that he is the most “intellectual” MCA President in the history of MCA, just cannot understand this simple issue.

He forced the poor Port Klang Authority (PKA) Chairman Datuk Lee Hwa Beng to come out with a fierce statement attacking me for making statements which are “baseless” and  “preposterous”, which completely avoided the issue (i) that MPs have after two weeks of Parliament  not received or sighted the PwC report and appendices on the PKFZ; (ii) whether MPs will get the PwC report and appendices before Parliament adjourns on Thursday on 2nd July and (iii) if not, on what specific date MPs will get the PwC report and appendices on the PKFZ scandal.

Does Ong realise that the longer he drags out this issue, the more scandalous is his display of utter Ministerial impotence and ineptitude as he could not even do a most simple thing to get the PwC report and appendices tabled in Parliament to allow MPs to study them in trying to understand how the country is landed with the “mother of all scandals”  – the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal?

Ong has four days next week to redeem himself by getting the PwC report and appendices tabled in Parliament without any ado, so that MPs can begin to study them.

Something must be very wrong with Ong when he could not even table the PwC report and appendices on the PKFZ scandal  after more than a month of its publication!

Question No. 2 –
  In a weekly parliamentary commentary  in today’s
Utusan Malaysia
entitled
 “Tee Keat kena ‘serang’ di Parliamen”,
Nizam Yatim among other things wrote:  that Ong,
“yang baru pulang dari menghadhiri Pertunjukan Udara Paris di Peranchis, dilihatnya seperti tidak membuat persediaan secukupnya untuk menjawab di Parlimen”.

Ong was clearly not prepared to answer all the pertinent questions about the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal when he returned from his junket at the Paris Air Show, which was why he made an eight-minute Ministerial “non-statement” which did not say anything which was not known to the observant Malaysian public.

Can Ong explain why he was so unprepared and unready to answer and “tell all” about the PKFZ scandal, as he had promised when he became Transport Minister after the last general elections 15 months ago?

Question No. 3:
The
Utusan Malaysia
commentary ended as follows:

Dalam pada itu, Timbalan Menteri Kewangan, Datuk Dr. Awang Adek Hussin yang menggulung usul itu pada Khamis juga tidak terlepas daripada asakan Kit Siang yang memintanya memberi penjelasan sama ada Kabinet membincangkan atau tidak pengeluaran surat jaminan kepada projek PKFZ.

Tindakan Kit Siang itu, menyebabkan Yang Dipertua Dewan Rakyat, Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia terpaksa campur tangan dan dengan nada suara yang tinggi menegaskan bahawa soalan itu tidak seharus ditanya kerana Timbalan Menteri tidak boleh menghadiri mesyuarat Kabinet.

Does Tee Keat agree with the Speaker that Deputy Ministers, when representing Ministers to speak and reply in Parliament, cannot be asked about what Ministers did or did not do in Cabinet?

Does this mean that henceforth Deputy Ministers should not be allowed to represent Ministers in Ministerial replies whether during question time or debates, so as not to  provide an escape route for Ministers and the Government evade  full parliamentary accountability?

Will Ong and the MCA Ministers, Deputy Ministers and MPs agree to an amendment to the parliamentary Standing Orders barring Deputy Ministers from replying on behalf of Ministers in Parliament, making it compulsory for every Ministerial reply to be given by the Minister concerned?

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 27 June 2009, 1:08 pm and is filed under
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1Malaysia cracked already!

from
http://twitter.com/limkitsiang

Patrick Teoh is rite
http://tr.im/q2Bq
1Malaysia cracked already Look at pics in Star NST BH Utusan NYSP the big 1 behind PM n ors cracked!

10 minutes ago from web

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 28 June 2009, 6:20 pm and is filed under
Najib Razak
,
nation building
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Challenge to OTK to five public debates  on the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal where he could be assisted by five former Transport Ministers and five former PKA Chairmen

My three questions (No.88 to No. 90 on the 30th day in the current series) to Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat on the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal today are:

Question No. 1: Speaking at the MCA Subang Division Delegates Meeting last night, Ong accused me of repeatedly telling lies about the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal. Yet he could not tell a single “lie” that I have told whether in Parliament or in the past 30 days of “three-questions-a-day on PKFZ scandal”.

Unlike him, I substantiate every statement I make, whether in Parliament or outside.

For instance, I said in Parliament that Ong is “hero outside, coward inside” Parliament, and I gave two instances:

His heroic boast “outside” when he returned from his junket to  the Paris Air Show that he welcomed a full debate and prepared to face any questions in Parliament on the PKFZ scandal when he finally appeared in the second week of Parliament on June 22 to make  his Ministerial statement. But once “inside” Parliament, he became a coward and refused to allow any question or interruption in his eight-minute “Ministerial non-statement” which did not reveal anything new on the PKFZ scandal.

His “heroism” in exposing, and rightly, the RM30,000 “leakage” in the renovation SJKC Kung Yu in Muar in 2006, but his cowardice to “reveal all” about the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal.  How many times is the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal compared to the scandal of the RM30,000 “leakage” in renovation of a Chinese primary school? It is the astronomical 416,666 times!

I challenge Ong to a series of five public debates in Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, Penang, Malacca and Johore Baru  on the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal where he could be assisted by former Transport Ministers Tun Dr. Ling Liong Sik and Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy as well as former Port Klang Authority (PKA) Chairmen Tan Sri Ting Chew Peh, Datuk Yap Pian Hon and Datuk Seri Chor Chee Heung.

Ong had often boasted that he is not afraid of any public debate with any person on any subject. My first question to him today is whether he dare to accept this challenge to five public debates on the PKFZ scandal in Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, Penang, Malacca and Johore Baru.  Once he dare to say yes, I will appoint my representative who can finalise with his representative on the  date, time and venue for the series of five public debates on the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal.

Question No. 2- As the Chinese saying goes, “What a person does, he must  have the courage to bear full responsibility” (???????). Will Ong give an undertaking that he will stand by this saying and stop bullying and manipulating poor veteran MCA leaders like former MCA deputy minister Teng Boon Soon and Datuk Lee Hwa Beng to be his proxies, scapegoats and puppets to launch attacks on me, and in the process expose their ignorance and folly?

I pity Teng that after being humiliated in losing his Deputy Ministership, he is now bullied by Ong to file a motion in Parliament to refer me to the Committee for Privileges for misleading Parliament on the PKFZ scandal, when Teng does not know “head or tail” about “the mother of all scandals”.  All I need is a joint press conference with Teng to expose him in five minutes his  ignorance about the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal but I will not be like Ong in being a “beastly bully who push people too hard” (????) and I will spare Teng the agony.

Or in the case of Hwa Beng, why has Ong forced the PKA Chairman and former three-term Selangor State Assemblymen to betray his shocking inability to know the difference between submitting 300 copies of the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report to Parliament and tabling them in Parliament?  In the former, the 300 copies of the PwC report are physically handed to Parliament but can get lost in the vaults of Parliament to collect dust for the next few years, which is of no use to anybody; while ‘tabling in Parliament’ means placing a copy each on the table of every MP who will be able immediately read and study it. Lee does not know this important difference after being a Selangor Assemblyman for 12 years but why Ong want to humiliate Lee by exposing such ignorance himself?

This second question is on behalf of MCA officials – whether Ong will undertake to stop bullying and manipulating them to hide his inexcusable political failure to honour his pledge when he became Transport Minister 15 months ago to ‘tell all’ about the PKFZ scandal!

Question No. 3:  In bullying and manipulating Teng to file a motion to refer me to the Committee of Privileges, Ong qualifies to get into the Guinness Book of Records in becoming the first Cabinet Minister not only in Malaysian parliamentary history but in the history of Commonwealth Parliaments, to accuse an Opposition MP for not telling the whole truth about the Cabinet meetings and decisions about a major financial scandal.

I had last Wednesday sent a motion to the Speaker to refer Ong to the Committee of Privileges for misleading the House on the PKFZ scandal.

I offer to support, and get the 83 Pakatan Rakyat MPs, to support Teng’s motion (fathered by Ong)  to refer me to the Committee of Privileges  on the quid pro quo that Ong persuade Barisan Nasional MPs to support my motion to refer the Transport Minister to the Committee of Privileges. Let both motions, to refer him and me, to the Committee of Privileges be adopted at the same time, and let us both appear before the Committee of Privileges to prove who had misled Parliament on the PKFZ scandal.  Dare Ong agree to my proposition?

(Media Conference in Ipoh)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 28 June 2009, 12:35 pm and is filed under
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Najib’s announcement of new category of PSD scholarship based on “pure merit” welcome though taken with a heavy pinch of salt

The announcement by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak of a new category of Public Service Department (PSD) scholarships next year based purely on ‘pure merit’, regardless of race, is welcome although it is taken with a heavy pinch of salt after repeated disappointments with previous promises of ‘meritocracy’ by the Barisan Nasional Government.

Firstly, some six years ago, Malaysians were promised a system of ‘meritocracy’ in the annual intake of university students but it proved to be a ‘fradulent’ meritocracy, as there continues to be two incomparable university entrance examinations, the world-class two-year course STPM and the inferior one-year matriculation course.

If Barisan Nasional government is serious about wanting to stop the sharp drop in standards of Malaysian public universities – best illustrated by the best Malaysian universities falling out of the league of  the world’s Top 200 universities – and transform Malaysian universities into world-class institutions, the best lecturers and students must be recruited regarded of race or religion.

The first step is to do away with the ‘fraudulent meritocracy’ for university student intake by having one common university entrance examination – whether STPM or matriculation – coupled with a programme of positive affirmation to ensure that students from socio-economically backward sectors get special assistance to get universities places based on need and not race.

Secondly, Parliament and the nation were assured last year that in this year’s 2,000 PSD scholarships for foreign university studies, 20% or 400 places would be allocated solely on merit.  This again has proved to be a hollow undertaking, explaining the repeat this year of SPM top-scorers with 11 to 16As denied scholarships as compared to those with lesser academic results.

Now Najib promises a new PSD scholarship based on ‘pure merit’ regardless of race. My response: Welcome, but to see it is to believe it!

Can Najib really ensure that from next year, ‘the best of the best and the creme de la creme will be studying in Malaysian public universities, rather than as at present going abroad universities resulting in serious national brain drain or in private universities?

Skepticism that this new PSD scholarship based on ‘pure merit’ will end up less than ‘pure’ is understandable because of the absence of a genuine 1Malaysia mindset in the higher echelons of the political leadership and the bureaucracy  to treat all Malaysians regardless of race as equal Malaysian citizens.

For instance, why is the government planning to limit the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia to 10 subjects for the candidates?

While I frown on students sitting for 18, 19 or 20 subjects, why should students be barred from sitting for say, 12, 13 or 14 SPM subjects?

The problem is not with SPM students taking 12, 13 or 14 subjects but because SPM results are used for the award of PSD scholarships.  This problem can be resolved by making STPM or one common university entrance examination results as the basis for the award of PSD scholarships.

However, the real problem is whether Najib can convince Malaysians that his 1Malaysia is not just an empty slogan, good for a ‘dance and a song’ but a living and driving philosophy in all aspects of government policy.

How can Najib convince Malaysians about his seriousness about a 1Malaysia concept when he has not given up his push for ‘Malay unity government’ talks between Umno and Pas?

Is Najib prepared to give his blessing for the holding of ‘Chinese unity’, ‘Indian unity’, ‘Kadzandusunmurut unity’ and ‘Iban unity’ political talks in the country? If Najib is not prepared to publicly give his blessing for ‘Chinese unity’, ‘Indian unity’, ‘Kadazandusunmurut unity’, ‘Iban unity’ political talks, how can he reconcile 1Malaysia with the Umno-Pas ‘Malay unity government’ talks?

What is even more telling is that nobody in MCA, Gerakan, MIC, SUPP, PBS or the other Barisan Nasional component parties dare to ask for a clear decision whether in Cabinet or the BN Supreme Council whether such demands for Umno-Pas Malay unity government talks is completely inimical with 1Malaysia concept!

Umno Youth leader Khairy Jamaluddin has attacked me for being a ‘borderline racist’ in criticising the call for Umno-Pas Malay unity government talks as going against the 1Malaysia concept.

I think Khairy wanted to call Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad a ‘borderline racist’ but dare not do so, and  is using this way to hit out at the former Prime Minister.  Mahathir repeated his  opposition to any Umno-Pas Malay unity government talks at the Pandan Umno division motivational course yesterday.

Khairy’s allegation that I am a ‘borderline racist’ is most laughable coming from one who had been very good at playing the role of a rabid racist, as when he made an uncalled-for attack on the Indian community during a live telecast at the Umno General Assembly in November 2007 or his infamous outburst about the so-called marginalisation of the Malays in Penang.

But so long as Khairy can continue to play with impunity his role as a rabid racist, Najib’s 1Malaysia concept as a unifying force for all Malaysians regardless of race will remain suspect.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 28 June 2009, 1:17 pm and is filed under
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