"The police report lodged by the former Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim last Wednesday on July 21, 1999, viz. Tun H.S.Lee Police Station Report 19625/99, on the Perwaja scandal as:
1. The police report has thrown a completely new light on
the Perwaja scandal in implicating for the first time the Prime Minister,
Datuk Seri Mahathir Mohamad in the Perwaja scandal, which suffered
RM2.985 billion in accumulated losses and RM6.939 billion in liabilities
at the end of 1995, making it the biggest financial scandal in the history
of Malaysia.
2. In his police report, the former Deputy Prime Minister
who was at the relevant time the Finance Minister, said that the Ministry
of Finance was alerted in early 1996 that Perwaja was almost insolvent
and would require massive injection of funds from the Government, but
several earlier attempts to obtain detailed information from the then management,
particularly its Managing Director, Eric Chia failed as he repeatedly claimed
that his actions had the support and were under the directions of the Prime
Minister - which claims were substantiated with letters written by the
Prime Minister himself.
3. With the new information in the police report, Parliament
is duty-bound to ascertain whether the real reason why Anti-Corruption
Agency investigations into the Perwaja scandal are heading nowhere
after more than four years is because of the direct involvement of the
Prime Minister in the Perwaja scandal - and to demand for a Royal
Commission of Inquiry into the Perwaja scandal not only to clear
the Prime Minister but to ensure that it will not be another ‘heinous
crime without a criminal’."
* The request was rejected by the Speaker under the ground
that the matter was ‘not urgent’
(23/7/99)