KUCHING: Second Finance Minister Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh said he was merely retrieving information from the Australian financial authority that proved former Pujut assemblyman Dr Ting Tiong Choon was a bankrupt.
Wong, who is also Minister of International Trade and E-Commerce said if Dr Ting was not happy with the revelation, he should ask the Australian authority and not threaten to sue him.
“There is nothing much I can do if he wants to sue me. It is his democratic right to sue me but I would like to emphasise here that I merely retrieved the information from the Australian financial authority.
“If he’s not happy, he should ask the Australian authority. Don’t go after me because I have produced the official documents from the Australian authority. You have seen…both (on) insolvency and bankruptcy, the two documents,” he told reporters when met at the lobby of the State Legislative Assembly (DUN) Complex yesterday.
Wong was asked to comment on an online news report that Sarawak DAP would take legal action against him for alleging that Dr Ting was a bankrupt. Dr Ting said he would file the suit ‘as soon as possible’ against Wong for statements he made outside the DUN alleging that he was a bankrupt in Australia.
Wong, who is also United People’s Party (UPP) president, told reporters recently that Dr Ting was a bankrupt based on a search conducted last July.
He said the search was made on July 1 last year on the Bankruptcy Register Search of the Australian Financial Security Authority.
“He was declared bankrupt in 2012. The Australian official document still proves that he is a bankrupt. He came home just three weeks before the state election.
“Meaning, he came home perhaps sometimes in April because the election was held on May 7. Looks like he never dealt with this financial matter in Australia. Otherwise, when I searched on July 1, 2016, on the Bankruptcy Register Search…why did his name still appear on the list?” Wong said.
Dr Ting said Wong’s comments outside the chamber made him liable to a suit, adding: “I’m not a bankrupt nor have I ever been one.”
“I’ve told him in the Dewan that no one becomes bankrupt twice within three months. And yet he continued to make the assertion without checking the truth.
“It was ignorant on his part not to find out the real truth and had instead relied on hearsay from his party supporters. Now, we will see him in court,” Dr Ting said.