Consultant Editor
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 25 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has hit back at Barry Wain, the writer of a recently published book about the former prime minister, and denied charges that his administration squandered nearly RM100 billion through corruption and grandiose projects.
In a posting on his blog yesterday, Dr Mahathir made a point for point defence against the accusations leveled against him, and once again implied that Tun Abdullah Badawi wasted more public funds.
Wain, the former managing editor of the Asian Wall Street Journal, recently released his book “Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times,” in which he accuses Dr Mahathir of wasting RM100 billion in public funds during his tenure as PM.
Dr Mahathir had on Tuesday said he welcomed Lim Kit Siang’s call for the government to set up a royal commission to probe whether he “burned” RM100 billion.
In his latest blog posting, he directly references Wain’s accusations in the book.
“In Barry Wain’s book I was accused of losing Government money over the purchase of tin being sold by speculators. When the time came for them to deliver the tin, they could not deliver as they had no physical tin. But the London Metal Exchange ruled that the speculators need not honour the contract to sell to us.
“We lost money but not in billions of ringgit as alleged.”
He also acknowledged that Bank Negara had traded foreign currencies and lost money, but he denied that it was in the amount Wain imputed.
The third case in which Dr Mahathir defended himself was over losses made by Bank Bumiputera in Hong Kong in the 1980s.
“Altogether I don’t think the amount lost added up to RM10 billion even. If we had lost 100 billion ringgit the government would be in deep trouble. But although we did have poor growth during certain years, the government had never failed to meet all financial commitments including the servicing of loans. In fact we had enough money to prepay loans.
“The projects of course cost a lot of money. But the projects can be seen by the people.”
Among the projects he cited were the Penang Bridge, Twin Towers, KL Tower, KL International Airport, North Port and West Port in Klang, commuter train, LRT and monorail, the numerous expressways all over the country, electrification and double tracking, Putrajaya, Cyberjaya, Langkawi development, Proton, Modenas, the Silterra chip manufacturing plant and cement plants.
“However, I don’t think Barry Wain was referring to these projects when he said I burnt RM100million of government money,” said Dr Mahathir.
He also compared his spending with that of Abdullah, his hand-picked successor whom he later criticised for being inept.
The feisty Dr Mahathir pointed out that Abdullah’s administration had received RM270 billion from national oil company Petronas in his five year tenure as PM.
“How was this huge sum spent? There are only empty corridors everywhere,” he said in reference to the economic corridors set up by the Abdullah administration.
“The public has a right to know how 270 billion ringgit in five years has been spent. What projects have been financed by it. Why do we have to borrow money from China to build the second Penang Bridge?”
Dr Mahathir said that his government had only received RM126 billion from Petronas in 22 years.
“I know every effort was made to find whether I had misused government money. Failing to find anything the Abdullah government set up a Royal Commission and accused me of being influenced by others in the choice of judges.
“I have a right to clear my name. Tun Abdullah also has a right to clear his name,” he said.
Dr Mahathir also suggested that Wain was only willing to criticise him and not the leaders of Singapore, where the writer resides.
“Barry Wain was formerly with the Asian Wall Street Journal and Asia Week. Presently he is with the Singapore think tank, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
“He knows that if he writes anything against Singapore leaders he would be dragged to the courts, sued and forced to pay huge indemnity. His colleagues have all been found guilty of defamation when they wrote something that was not approved by Singapore leaders.”
No comments:
Post a Comment