Who would believe that after taking more than a month of official probe, all that the Ministry has discovered is something which the country had known on January 25 when the eight-member team returned from the Millennium Jump 2000 expedition to South Pole and admitted as false that there was a jump on January 13 at the South Pole.
After conducting an elaborate probe headed by the Deputy Minister, the Ministry has now washed its hands off the millennium jump scam and claimed that the dispute is a private matter which had nothing to do with the government.
What a colossal waste of time, money and resources. Why the investigation in the first place if it has nothing to do with the government?
How can Hishammuddin take such an irresponsible attitude when the Youth Ministry was a co-organiser of the Millennium Jump 2000 expedition, a fact which was publicised for over a year without any protest or correction by the Ministry.
It was on the basis of the Youth and Sports Ministry�s co-sponsorship that the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad was invited on December 16, 1999 to hand the Jalur Gemilang to the South Pole Millennium Jump 2000 team in a special ceremony at the Prime Minister�s Department. In media reporting of this function, the Youth and Sports Ministry was prominently described as one of the co-organisers - to which the Ministry never objected.
In fact, as has now been revealed, when the Prime Minister was handing over the Jalur Gemilang to the Millennium Jump 2000 on December 16, 1999, the Millennium Jump 2000 organisers had known four days earlier on December 12, 1999 that the parachute jump over the Geographical South Pole had been called off by the Russians - making it a grand deceit of the Prime Minister involving the Ministry of Youth and Sports.
I had objected to an investigation conducted by the Deputy Minister because I have no confidence that he would conduct a thorough investigation into two aspects into the South Pole jump scam: firstly, the full facts about the South Pole scam and secondly, the role and responsibility of the Ministry of Youth and Sports in this charade and scam, not only for the RM780,000 allocation for the expedition, but as a co-organiser of the expedition.
Hishammuddin had said more than once in public that the investigation report on the aborted Millennium Jump 2000 expedition to South Pole would be made public.
Why has the Ong Tee Kiat report into the South Pole Jump scam not been made public as promised by Hishammuddin?
By their inept handling of the South Pole Jump scam and turning it into a Youth and Sports Ministry farce, both Hishammuddin and Ong Tee Kiat are not inspiring Malaysians about their political and Ministerial capabilities. Both should redeem themselves by giving a proper and satisfactory accounting about the South Pole Jump scam and the investigation fiasco.
(11/3/2000)