LKS asks for meeting with Prime Minister on APs, Proton and government transparency

Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang  

(Parliament, Thursday): I have asked for a meeting with the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on the issue of  APs , Proton and government accountability, transparency, integrity and good governance. 

Abdullah is to be commended for his directive from Johannesburg to the Minister for International Trade and Industry, Datuk Paduka  Rafidah Aziz  to release the 2004 list of AP holders, saying that his administration had nothing to gain by not releasing the information.

Precisely, this is why many are baffled why Abdullah had to be pressured before making public the 2005 APs list last Monday, and now the 2004 APs list, and has yet to release all the  APs lists for the past 35 years since the introduction of APs in 1970, including during the period Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad  was Minister for Trade and Industry from January 1978  to July 1981,  before he became the fourth Prime Minister.

Abdullah has yet to respond to my repeated call for making public the letter of explanation which Rafidah had written to Mahathir on the directive of the Cabinet to explain the APs mess, as the issues concerned, whether APs, Proton or the national automotive policy, affect all Malaysians and not the two of them.

Abdullah should be pro-active and not be reactive in his pledge to lead a clean, incorruptible, accountable, transparent and people-oriented administration.  He should make a new start with such a pro-active policy for accountability, transparency, integrity and good governance by making public Rafidah’s explanation letter to Mahathir, even if it is quite voluminous as it has been reported in the media as “a thick wedge of papers that is about 6 cm high”.

I will seek Abdullah’s support for the establishment of a Parliamentary Select Committee on International Trade and Industry so that Parliamentarians can play a direct role in policy input and formulation whether on the national automotive policy or issues such as APs and the Proton.

In the past two decades, for instance, there should have been a greater and more purposive  parliamentary input through a  Parliamentary Select Committee on International Trade with periodic reviews and studies about the national car industry and APs, especially whether the time has come to abolish the AP system altogether and remove the 20-year burden of Malaysians by reducing the price of cars.

(28/07/2005)