KUCHING: State DAP chairman Chong Chieng Jen is inviting PBB Youth to take up his challenge in ensuring that the administration of the state government is one that is clean, fair and of good governance.
In referring to their statement published in a local daily on Wednesday where they chided Chong for ‘trying to coach the state government’, he dared the party’s youth wing to take up three challenges which included naming the ten-point policy reforms which have already become a Barisan Nasional (BN) policy.
“PBB Youth has unashamedly claimed that several of my proposed ten-point policy reforms have already become the policies and practices of the BN government which have been given priority for the interest of the people,” he told a press conference at the party’s headquarters here yesterday.
He said none of what he had proposed in the ten-point policy reforms for Chief Minister Tan Sri Datuk Amar Adenan Satem on July 7 were part of the government’s policies and practices as claimed by the youth wing.
Chong also dared PBB Youth to organise a forum to hear out the evidence of cronyism, nepotism and corrupt practices in the administration of the state government.
“This is in respect to their statement stating that my allegation of cronyism, nepotism and corruption in the state was without basis and with malicious intention,” he said, adding he had a ‘ten-inch thick document’ on list of state lands being alienated to companies owned by family members of some PBB leaders in the past 15 years at less than a quarter of the market price and list of government contracts awarded to companies owned by the family members of many PBB leaders in the past 15 years without going through the open tender process.
“These are clear evidence of cronyism and nepotism practised by the state government. All these have been produced countless times in ‘ceramahs’ and forums organised by DAP in the past few years.
“If PBB Youth is so ignorant of these facts, I hereby challenge them to hold a public forum for me to reveal each and every piece of evidence to show that my claim that the state government has been plagued with cronyism, nepotism and corrupt practice, is true.”
Chong also challenged PBB Youth to start a movement within PBB and BN to ensure that all the state government’s cabinet ministers and assistant ministers support Adenan’s new policy of prohibiting their immediate family members from applying for state land and logging licences.
“While PBB Youth claimed that they are in full support of Tan Sri Datuk Amar Adenan’s policy, do they also support his new policy would apply to all his ministers and assistant ministers?.”
He further reiterated that if PBB Youth were unable to take up the challenges posed, this goes to show that they were “no better than their predecessors” and thus had no moral standing to claim that the Sarawak government practises clean, fair and good governance.