 |
|
| PPP may take legal action against IPF president 18 February 2001 KUALA LUMPUR, Sat. - The People's Progressive Party may initiate legal action against Indian Progressive Front president Datuk M. Pandithan for "misusing PPP's symbol and insulting it" during the IPF's recent referendum. PPP president Senator Datuk M. Kayveas said the party would send a letter first to allow Pandithan to explain IPF's action. "We will first send a letter or notice in a friendly manner to the IPF president to explain why PPP should not take legal action against him for including PPP's logo without permission in its referendum." Kayveas said the IPF referendum was unacceptable as it was not conducted among its entire membership of 500,000. IPF held the referendum to gauge its members' response towards the offer from MIC president Datuk Seri Samy Vellu to IPF to join MIC and also Kayveas' offer to IPF members to join the PPP. Speaking at a Press conference today, Kayveas said: "The referendum was supposed to include everyone but it was only conducted among a small fraction of about 2,950 IPF members. This was not a referendum but simply an opportunity to insult the MIC and PPP. "All this while, the PPP has maintained good relations with IPF but to include it in the same basket as MIC and give one vote to each party to show IPF is more popular among the Indian community is something we cannot accept." "We did not permit the PPP to be included in the referendum." Kayveas said the PPP is not an Indian-based party as its struggle is for the development of a multi-racial and progressive Malaysia. |
 |
| Monday May 14 MPSJ should just ignore deputy minister’s bleating K Kabilan 11:26am, Mon: Will our ministers ever learn? While the mass majority of the public want to eradicate any resemblance of cronyism in the government, we still have ministers and deputies casually invoking shades of cronyism in the public realm. Housing and local government deputy minister M Kayveas is one such government official. His open criticism against the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) for raiding tycoon Lee Kim Yew’s Mines Resort City on Wednesday proves this point. For the record, MPSJ raided Mines Resort to seal the property and premises of Country Heights Holdings Bhd over the company’s failure to pay RM9 million in assessment arrears. The raid was eventually called off after the company paid RM851,000 as part payment. It is a positive move by the council to have finally decided to collect what is owed and RM9 million is no small amount. As the council officials had said, MPSJ was acting within its powers and the raid was routine in situations where property owners default on payment. The council is empowered by the law to raid such premises and the raid itself was not a surprising move. MPSJ had sent three reminders to Country Heights as well as three warning letters prior to the raid. In essence, MPSJ had simply followed procedure and did what it should do to collect the outstanding arrears. Illogical For Kayveas to tick off MPSJ, is quite unreasonable and gives the impression of big-wigs trying to protect a crony. He instead, should have commended the council for doing its duties without fear or favour. The minister was reported to have said in The Sun (May 11) that the raid was “not fair” to Lee, as the businessman had “contributed immensely” towards development by turning a former tin mine into “something the country can be proud of”. He also added that the raid will only undermine the cooperation between the government and the private sector. Questions arise as to why Kayveas must come to Lee’s defence in this matter. His answer that Lee had contributed to the country is illogical, if not childish. Kayveas seems to have missed the point that even if one had contributed towards the development of the country, that person is not automatically given the privilege of not paying council taxes. In fact, even Kayveas cannot deny the fact that by turning the disused mining pool into a theme park, Lee had made his millions. So he was not developing the site merely on national interest alone. And cooperation between government and private sector will only be enhanced if the private sector complies to the rules and regulations as other citizens. There should be no exceptions to this. Transparency Kayveas also said that MPSJ should have approached his ministry if it had faced problems collecting the arrears from Lee. Why should the council do that? Why can’t it act within its powers? Will Kayveas be willing to step in if other ordinary citizens face similar problems? Furthermore, in this case, Lee owes MPSJ RM9 million, which is a tidy amount and the entire municipality can only benefit if the council gets the money. Won’t the possible development arising from this money also contribute to the nation? Moving along, while MPSJ must be commented for its tough action in collecting its due, it must also answer queries raised by Lee as to why the council had allegedly neglected its responsibility in the maintenance of amenities in the areas where Lee’s properties are located. Lee had claimed that his company had been providing essential services in the locality rather than MPSJ. “How can they claim assessment when they fail to discharge the duties appropriately? Can we see some service before we pay up?” asked Lee. But the question which arises is why didn’t Lee use the proper channels to air his grievances about MPSJ’s alleged lack of services? Why wait four years and only after a raid? Indeed, Lee can’t use the excuse he doesn’t know any top guns. If at all there is something Kayveas can blame MPSJ for, it may be this alleged negligence in providing basic services. MPSJ must also explain why it waited four years before taking such a stern action to claim the sum owed. Lee’s companies have defaulted on payments since 1998. The council must also be transparent in matters involving amount of payments. MPSJ must respond to Lee’s claims that it had offered Country Heights Holdings ‘a special deal’ to pay the full amount owed and get a 70 percent refund later as the company had maintained its own areas. |