Monday, May 5, 2008

Lim and Ooi ‘have no courage for open debate’ - The Star

PENANG: May 5, 2008

The 48-hour deadline has passed and former Pertubuhan Bunga Tanjung (PBT) members are saying Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and his chief of staff Jeff Ooi have no courage to debate the matter pertaining to the association for the wives of state assemblymen and MPs.

“Lim has no courage to debate openly with PBT members,” PBT past president Puan Sri Chui Kah Peng said in a press statement.

“We are very disappointed Lim has refused to accept our challenge to defend ourselves and to let him justify his allegations,” she said.

Chui said in view of the rejection and failure by both DAP politicians to respond, “we will continue to take appropriate measures to defend our integrity and dignity.”

However, Lim’s political secretary Ng Wei Aik said PBT members should seriously consider the challenge as it involved some legality and question of ethics on how the funds were transferred and the association dissolved.

In a letter to Chui, he said one of the pertinent questions involved was that all PBT members had lost their rights to run and manage the association after the election results were announced and they did not have the mandate to make any decision on the association and its funds.

Ng also questioned PBT members’ rights to unanimously agree to channel the RM350,000 donation to the Association of Wives of Ministers and Deputy Ministers (Bakti) and dissolve the association during their Annual General Meeting on March 9.

He said all PBT members had lost their membership as a result of their husbands’ defeat in the election a day earlier.

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