Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy chickened out of the special press conference yesterday on the RM4.6 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal, which was only attended by his press secretary.
Is this because Chan is aware that he would have to face many difficult and embarrassing questions about the RM4.6 billion PKFZ scandal which he would not be able to answer satisfactorily and he decided that the better of valour was to avoid the media altogether on the issue?
Chan must own up – how many of the four “Letters of Support” for Kuala Dimensi Sdn. Bhd.’s RM4.6 billion bonds for PKFZ project was signed by him as Transport Minister and why he should not be censured in Parliament for the RM4.6 billion PKFZ scandal in giving such unlawful government guarantees without authority from the Finance Ministry resulting in the AAA rating from the Malaysian Rating Corporation Bhd — and now given as the main reason why the government has to undertake the bailout of the RM4.6 billion PKFZ.
Kuala Dimensi is not only the company which sold the 1,000 acres of land for the PKFZ to Port Klang Authority (PKA) at RM25 per sq ft or some 20 times the cost of its acquisition of the land four years earlier in 1999 at RM3 per sq ft but also the turnkey contractor for RM1.85 billion development of the PKFZ.
The press conference by the PKFZ business development general manager Chia Kon Leong had failed to answer the many pertinent questions concerning accountability, transparency and integrity of the RM4.6 billion PKFZ as well as its feasibility and viability.
Chia said that PKFZ aims to be self-sustaining in 2012 when it is targeted to have an 80 per cent occupancy rate, equivalent to housing between 650 to 700 companies, when it would generate RM80 million annually.
The PKFZ project was sold by Kuala Dimensi to the government on the understanding and undertaking that it would be feasible, self-financing and would not need a single ringgit of public funding from the very beginning.
At the rate of generating RM80 million revenue annually from 2012, it would take PKFZ 57.5 years to recover the RM4.6 billion investments or to be more correct “mis-investments” — i.e. till 2070!
Parliament must be given all the details about the government bailout of the PKFZ by way of a RM4.6 billion soft loan to the PKA. It is said that details of the bailout are being finalized.
I call on all MPs, including Barisan Nasional MPs, to take a common stand to support the parliamentary principle that there should not be any government bailout of the RM4.6 billion PKFZ scandal unless and until there is full parliamentary accountability and prior parliamentary sanction.
The PKFZ scandal is not only an acid test of the National Integrity Plan launched by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi three years ago but whether Parliament is able to have a mind of its own or just a mere rubber-stamp of the Executive to blindly and unthinkingly approve whatever is decided by the Cabinet, heedless of the principles of accountability, transparency and integrity. Next week will decide whether all the talk about a “First-World Parliament” in the past three years should be buried for good.