DAP veteran lawmaker Lim Kit Siang said that Damansara MP Tony Pua has gone too far in attacking the Foon Yew High School board of governors although he was right in condemning former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak for using the school to exculpate his kleptocracy.
Pua previously criticised the school board for allowing Najib to give a talk at the school’s Seri Alam campus last week, saying that it had “set the worst possible example for our children” by inviting a world-renowned kleptocrat to the event.
Najib was sentenced to 12 years’ jail and fined RM210 mil after he was found guilty of all seven charges related to the misappropriation of RM42 mil of the SRC International funds.
In his statement, Pua had also demanded that the school governors be sacked for their “complete lack of integrity”.
According to Lim, the Foon Yew board of governors should not be blamed if Najib wanted to visit the school as he had approved the school campus in Seri Alam and Kulai.
“However Najib should not have abused his visit to whitewash his criminal conviction in the courts and to appeal to the Chinese community to support Barisan Nasional (BN) in the upcoming Johor state election,” he opined.
“Schools should not be diverted from its primary task to make future generations able to differentiate between right and wrong and never to lose the moral compass in life.”
Lim went on to reiterate his stand that UMNO has forced the holding of the Johor state polls not to defend the lives and livelihoods of the people but “to force the early holding of the 15th General Election (GE15) to enable Najib to return as the 10th or 11th prime minister”.
“The ulterior motive of the UMNO masters is clear. Although none of the UMNO ‘court cluster’ is a candidate in the Johor state polls, it is obvious that the UMNO ‘court cluster’ is calling the shots as they want an early GE15 so that they can escape punishment and go to jail for corruption and their abuse of power when they were in Government,” he stated.
“This is why Najib – the other protagonist in the 1MDB scandal – is campaigning so hard in the Johor state election to spread his ‘Malu Apa Bossku’ message promoting the immoral concept that political leaders need not have moral standards of honesty, probity and accountability.”
Lim further urged Johorean voters to take heed of what is happening in New York in the criminal trial of ex-Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng who played a crucial role in the 1MDB scandal.
Commenting on fugitive businessman Jho Low’s birthday bash which was described by Wall Street Journal as the “wildest party (Las) Vegas ever saw” Lim noted that Low had splashed millions in 1MDB cash to throw an extravagant party that was attended by the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Paris Hilton and Megan Fox.
Invoices were produced to show that Low’s Las Vegas party costed more than US$3.6 mil.
“If these were from Low’s own fortune, it would have been a separate matter, but he spent money from the 1MDB funds which has to be repaid by Malaysians of this and future generations,” he remarked.
In the case of Roger Ng who is charged with pocketing US$35 mil in “secret kickbacks” from 1MDB, Lim also pointed out that even Ng’s own lawyers had called it “perhaps the single largest heist in the history of the world”.
“It is therefore all the more shocking that the other protagonist in the 1MDB scandal – Najib Razak – has shown absolutely no compunction or regret whatsoever over the scandal and for turning Malaysia into a kleptocracy,” he commented.
“For the first time in the 65-year history of elections in Malaysia we are having an election where a major political party is elevating ‘shamelessness’ as a public good where its political leaders need not have moral standards or guilt for turning the country into a kleptocracy, where political leaders cannot differentiate between what is right and wrong, what is corruption and abuse of power and what is not.
“Is this going to be Malaysia’s fate?” – March 2, 2022
