After more than a month after the mass media reported that the investigation conducted by the Fire and Rescue Department showed that the fire was the result of an old and overloaded wiring system, Kayveas refuted the reports, declaring that he has yet to see a report from the Fire and Rescue Department saying that it was a short circuit, and announced: “After the investigation and studies done by myself, (I conclude) it’s a sabotage. It’s very clear.”
It is significant that when pressed for the exact content of the final report from the six-man special task force headed by Negeri Sembilan Fire and Rescue Department director Othman Abdullah, Kayveas said that he did not get a copy of the report.
Yet Kayveas has the temerity to pronounce on the cause of the DTC fire, probably believing that he has an excuse of last resort - that he was only giving his personal opinion!
Kayveas is way ahead not only of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and the entire Cabinet, but of the Police, the Fire and Rescue Department and the Chemistry Department which had conducted separate investigations into the DTC fire in arriving at the cause of the DTC fire.
Last month, Mahathir admitted that he had read the reports of
the three agencies which had submitted their findings on the DTC fire -
namely the Fire and Rescue Department, the police and the Chemistry Department
- and that they said three things, viz:
If the Fire and Rescue Department had pinpointed a short circuit
as the probable cause of the DTC fire, is Kayveas publicly declaring that
he has no confidence in the professionalism of the Fire and Rescue Department
which is directly under his Ministry and would he ask for a complete overhaul
of the leadership of the Fire and Rescue Department?
The government should end the politics of insinuation and rule of rumour-mongering by make public all the three investigation reports on the Dewan Tunku Canselor fire by the Fire and Rescue Department, the police and the Chemistry Department to let the people decide for themselves the cause of the fire.
Kayveas’ outburst is the height of irresponsibility especially under the prevailing conditions when the authorities are on a witch-hunt to clamp-down on student activists in the university campuses to purge the universities of healthy and legitimate dissent, whether through the indiscriminate use of the draconian Internal Security Act or the further emasculation of academic freedoms of students and academicians by even more oppressive amendments to the Universities and University Colleges Act.
(16/8/2001)