No funds for ministers to 'buy' number-plates

A Finance Ministry officer has clarified that there is no budget allocation for ministers to submit bids for a number-plate for their official cars.

Chinese newspaper Sin Chew Daily today quoted an unnamed officer as saying that the Treasury has never allocated any funds for such a purpose.

The officer was asked to respond to Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai's (left) explanationyesterday that his RM24,200 bid for the 'WWW15' plate number is for his new official car, as the old one is past its shelf life.

While saying the bidding exercise had been handled by his officers, Liow had skirted the question of who had paid the RM24,200 bill.

In a related development, former minister Fong Chan Onn has claimed that every minister is allocated a free number-plate for the official car.

The former MCA vice-president also revealed that there is no ceiling price for the number-plate as it is allocated free of charge by the government. 

On another issue, former Perak menteri besar Mohamad Nizar Jamaluddin will give a statement to Johor police tomorrow over hispostings on Twitter on the successful bid for the WWW1 car registration number by the Johor sultan.

Yesterday, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said two police officers will record the statement from Nizar, who had agreed to give the statement.

“I was informed by Johor chief police officer Mokhtar Shariff that Johor police had received 39 reports over Mohamad Nizar’s statement on his Twitter account,” he told reporters, according to national news agency Bernama.