Four MCA Ministers should focus their energies to amend the 2007 Budget to build 30 new Chinese primary schools and five Tamil primary schools next year instead of getting the MCA Publicity Bureau to issue “half-past six” statements

________________
Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang  
___________________

(Parliament, Tuesday) :  In the past few days, I had been most amused and entertained by “half-past six” statements issued by the MCA Publicity Bureau which, though directed at me as the  target of their attacks, boomeranged on the MCA Ministers and national leadership for their “half-baked” mentality.

The “half-past six” MCA statements made baseless allegations of what I had never said, and built “castles on the sand” which collapse with the touch of a finger!

Yesterday for instance, I was accused by the MCA of harbouring “evil intentions” in openly calling on the Education Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein to sack Deputy Education Minister, Datuk Hon Choon Kim.

It is so sad that educational standards have fallen so low in our country that  after nearly half-a-century of nationhood,  publicists and propagandists of a political party with four Ministers in the Cabinet cannot understand a simple statement.

I invite the four MCA Ministers to read my statement carefully and point out where I had called on Hishammuddin to sack Hon.

Yes, I had said on Saturday that Hon should be sacked as Deputy Education Minister for gross incompetence if he had to take more than 10 weeks to discover that the so-called two new Chinese primary schools announced by Hishammudin last  Wednesday to be built under the Ninth Malaysia Plan  had been listed among the first round of 880 construction projects worth RM15 billion  under the five-year plan when the 880 projects were   made public by the Prime Minister as far back as July 18.

I never asked Hishammuddin to sack Hon as a Cabinet Minister has no powers to sack his Deputy Minister.  The prerogative of appointing or dismissing Ministers and Deputy Ministers lies in the hand of the Prime Minister.

There is another way Hon can be sacked as Deputy Education Minister – by his political party, in this case by the MCA President, Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting asking the Prime Minister to relieve Hon of his post because of his gross incompetence.

But can Ong and the other three MCA Ministers “wash their hands” of responsibility for the continued neglect, discrimination and marginalization of Chinese and Tamil primary schools by the Barisan Nasional government in all aspects of school development?

I am very intrigued why the MCA had tried to pretend  outrage that I had called on Hishammuddin to sack Hon when I had not done so.  Is MCA trying to invoke the imagery of the keris-wielding Umno Youth leader “sacking” the MCA Deputy Education Minister?  This is most irresponsible politicking, to say the least.

Earlier  MCA “half-past six” statements alleged that I was trying to “claim credit”  for Hishammuddin’s announcement that  two Chinese primary schools would be built under the Ninth Malaysia Plan after the  Datuk  Noh Omar furore in Parliament that no Chinese and Tamil primary schools would be built in the next five years.

Furthermore, that I had “unspeakable agenda” in saying that Deputy Education Minister Noh Omar had to “eat dead cat” when he was  cornered by DAP MP for Ipoh Barat M. Kulasageran to blurt out in Parliament  the unstated policy of the Education Ministry not to build new Chinese and Tamil primary schools except to use the issue as an election bait for votes during a general election.

Again, I invite the four MCA Ministers to substantiate such  “half-past six” statements and  produce evidence that I had attempted  to  “claim credit” in my statement or blog.

Nobody except MCA would want to “claim credit” for the two so-called Chinese primary schools announced by Hishammuddin when one, SJKC Kulai (2), is a relocated school which was promised before 1999 general election, and the other, SJKC Tun Tan Siew Sin is a Wawasan School.

Furthermore, if Noh Omar had violated Barisan Nasional policy, why no MCA Minister or leader dared to ask for disciplinary action to be taken against him, when the MCA Deputy Higher Education Minister, Datuk Ong Tee Kiat could be treated so shabbily and shamefully for speaking the truth about 90% misuse of funds in the RM30,000 allocation for repair of SJKC Kung Yu, where only RM3,000 worth of work was done for a RM30,000 project?

I would ask the four MCA Ministers to  focus their energies to get Cabinet agreement to  amend the 2007 Budget to build 30 new Chinese primary schools and five Tamil primary schools next year – and 300 new Chinese primary schools and 30 new Tamil primary schools under the Ninth Malaysia Plan -  instead of getting the MCA Publicity Bureau to issue “half-past six” statements.

(03/10/2006)