He said that although "things have settled down in Penang" following the Gerakan-MCA power tussle over the "two Lims" defection, Gerakan Assemblymen in Penang "are under tremendous pressure".
He said: "Our people have been approached with money to leave Gerakan".
What Keng Yaik had revealed is the first major case of money politics in Malaysia in the new millenium, which the first Anti-Corruption Agency director-general and former Federal Court judge, Tan Sri Harun Hashim had described in his weekly column in New Straits Times yesterday as "an undemocratic practice and the root cause of a corrupt society".
The question Malaysians are asking is whether the Anti-Corruption Agency would set up a special team to conduct immediate investigations into Keng Yaik’s serious allegations of "big money" to corrupt Gerakan State Assemblymen in Penang - the first expose of big-time money politics in Malaysia in the new millennium.
Malaysians can still remember that immediately after former Bank Negara assistant governor Datuk Abdul Murad Khalid made public his statutory declaration dated 26th October 1999 that former Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had amassed a fortune of RM3 billion while in government through 20 "Master Accounts", the Anti-Corruption Agency swung into immediate action and announced the setting up a special team to investigate into Murad’s allegations against Anwar headed by the agency's Investigations Division director Abdul Razak Idris.
The ACA director-general Datuk Ahmad Zaki Hussin immediately commented that "almost every paragraph" of Murad’s seven-page statutory declaration contained some information on corruption or corruption practices.
He even announced plans to go globe-trotting to investigate Murad’s allegations against Anwar in connection with the US-based Asia-Pacific Policy Centre.
Zaki should explain the outcome of the investigations by the ACA’s special team into Murad’s allegations or whether with the November 1999 general election over and the publicity damage against Anwar and the reformasi movement achieved, the ACA has also quietly forgotten about Murad’s allegations.
I do not expect Zaki to give any response, just as he had failed to reply to my earlier query as to why the ACA was not prepared to accord the same or even greater weight given to Murad’s unverified statutory declaration to the four police reports lodged by Anwar on corruption and abuses of power in the highest levels of government.
However, Malaysians would expect the Anti-Corruption Agency to report to Parliament when it reconvenes on Monday the outcome of its investigations based on Murad’s statutory declaration and Zaki would be mistaken if he thinks that the matter could be so easily forgotten by the Malaysian people.
What Malaysians want to know now is whether Zaki and the ACA are prepared to show equal zeal in setting up a special team to investigate into Keng Yaik’s serious allegations of money politics to corrupt Gerakan State Assemblymen in Penang, investigating not only Keng Yaik but all Gerakan Assemblymen and officers who had been "approached with money to leave Gerakan".
From Keng Yaik’s revelation, the ACA should not have difficulty in getting names from the Gerakan President, as he has given the impression that Penang is now crawling with "power brokers" armed with bags of money who are approaching Gerakan Assemblymen and officials to tempt them to leave Gerakan.
Public confidence in the independence, professionalism and integrity of the ACA would suffer another blow if the ACA is not prepared to swing into action to investigate Keng Yaik’s allegations.
If there is no truth to Keng Yaik’s allegations, then the ACA should lodge a police report and recommend to the Attorney-General that Keng Yaik should be prosecuted for publishing "false news" under the Printing Presses and Publications Act.
(11/2/2000)