Not only Umno, MCA also imploding!

MUCH has been written about how Umno is imploding with warlords conspiring and going all out to remove one another from the corridors of power.

It spells trouble for Barisan Nasional (BN) in the next 13th General Election as Umno is the dominant force in the coalition.

However, BN’s second largest coalition partner, the MCA, is also in the same boat as Umno.

Little birds in MCA say the party’s undisputed immoral president Chua Soi Lek had been trying to end his predecessor Ong Tee Keat’s political career from the day he successfully manoeuvred the latter’s ouster in 2010.

Internal killing fields

Chua and MCA Youth chief and deputy education minister Wee Ka Siong’s attempt on Tuesday (March 13, 2012) to claim credit for the final approval of a three-acre plot in Pandan’s Taman Lembah Maju for the relocation of Hulu Langat Batu 18 SJKC Choon Hwa is only the tip of the iceberg.

MCA insiders say the Chua-led MCA had been throwing the spanner into projects and services launched by Ong in Pandan.

Chua’s game plan to end Ong’s political career is to shackle thelatter’s integrity and influence as Pandan MP and inability to deliver. What the pea-brain Chua and his cronies failed to see is that they are also sabotaging BN, weakening a winnable BN seat.

Pandan is the only MCA parliamentary seat in Selangor won in the March 2008 political tsunami.

How else do you explain the four years of lobbying after the school was identified for relocation in 2006. Ong had proposed the relocation to Pandan in 2007 and the land was found and approved in March 2008.

Ekabena Sdn Bhd had on March 3, 2008, informed the then Education Minister Hishammuddin Hussein that it is handing over 10.7 acres in Taman Lembah Maju for the construction of Choon Hwa.

This also raises a significant question? Only three acres was approved for Choon Hwa. What happened to the remaining 7.7 acres? Who swallowed the land or who will eventually benefit?

Who swallowed the other 7.7 acres

After Ong revealed all in a chronology in his blog on Wednesday (March 14, 2012), the man who exposed the multi-billion-ringgit Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) financial scandal rightly remarked that Wee, as deputy education minister, had much to explain why only three acres were approved when the negotiated plot was five acres.

The MCA insiders also said financing the relocation was not a problem because in March 2009, then Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Najib Abdul Razak announced the approval of RM95 million for the construction of 20 SJKCs, including RM3 million for Choon Hwa.

With all major relocation issues settled, why then did it take a former MCA president and senior Cabinet member so long to get the final approval?

Ong had revealed in his blog that it took him at least two meetings with Najib and seven meetings with Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to get things moving.

The final approval for the school land was also two acres short. Instead of claiming credit, Wee should explain why was Choon Hwa short-changed?

Sabotage Kings

Since their attempts to discredit Ong has failed, the insiders say Chua and Wee had to claim credit fast to cover up their “sabotage Pandan tactics”.

Now, the MCA little birds say Chua and Wee are preparing to use the BN-controlled mainstream print media, especially the MCA-owned The Star, to provide wide coverage on March 23, 2012, in a visit to the plot allocated for Choon Hwa and to claim credit for the school relocation.

That is the type of reliable and scheming self-centred leaders that Malaysians will be electing in the next general election if they continue to give their ballots to BN.

Jackson Ng is a Retired Journalist