Kit Siang: Kid helped reduce national debt while Najib helped ‘tot it up’

DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang has stated that former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak could learn a thing or two about patriotism and reducing national debt from the 12-year-old boy who donated his savings to Tabung Harapan Malaysia.

While the teenager was doing what he could to help the country reduce its national debt, Lim said Najib was instead responsible for totting up the RM1 trillion national accumulative debt and liabilities the country was currently saddled with.

Lim was referring to the claim made by Najib in an interview with Reuters that he would have acted had he known funds from 1MDB had been misappropriated under his watch.

Najib also claimed he was not aware of the source of funding for his wife Rosmah Mansor’s jewellery, including the controversial “pink diamond” allegedly bought using funds misappropriated from 1MDB.

Najib was ousted in the 14th general election after Pakatan Harapan won and it had formed the current government. He is presently under investigation by Malaysian authorities for his involvement in the 1MDB scandal involving alleged billions in misappropriated funds.

He has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, the beleaguered fund and subsidiaries link to it are also being investigated by authorities from other countries, including Singapore, Switzerland and the United States.

“Reading Najib’s Reuters interview, it struck me that yesterday was the day when a 12-year-old primary schoolboy, Ervin Devadasan, showed an ex-PM the true meaning of patriotism.

“With his excesses and the 1MDB scandal, Najib turned Malaysia into a global kleptocracy and kakistocracy, totting up a national debt for Malaysia exceeding RM1 trillion which 12-year Ervin wants to help in reducing...by donating all his savings in the past months meant to buy a drum set – totalling RM214.60.

“Any time, Ervin is more patriotic than former PM Najib!” remarked the Iskandar Puteri MP.

Ervin (above, second from right), a Standard Six student, had donated his piggy bank savings to Tabung Harapan Malaysia during at a press conference presided by both Lim and Segambut MP Hannah Yeoh yesterday. 

‘Flabbergasted’ at backlash 

Lim also dismissed the backlash Harapan courted for accepting donations from the child.

“Later that evening, I received a call from a reporter for my reaction to a very unfriendly attack on the boy’s donation, describing Tabung Harapan as a ‘politically-charged fund’ and deploring Ervin’s donation as ‘ridiculous’, ‘exploitative’, ‘a gimmick’ and ‘a pretty cheap stunt’.

“I was shocked, especially as it had come from one of the Harapan parties and when Tabung Harapan is not a ‘politically-charged fund’.

“But I did not want to create an unnecessary issue and only responded with a terse comment - ‘Flabbergasted is an understatement’,” he said.

He further called the fund, which has collected RM88.36 million since it began on May 30, a “manifestation of a Malaysia reborn” and enabled Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, culture, language, politics, age or gender to show their love and patriotism for the country.

“Nobody expects the Tabung to collect near the trillion-ringgit figure to meet the national debt, but it is a national catharsis so to say, for Malaysians to demonstrate that whatever the machinations of leaders, the people at large love this country as their only motherland and will not allow their so-called leaders to mortgage the nation’s future and those of future generations,” he added.

PKR Supreme Council member Latheefa Koya yesterday slammed Lim and Yeoh for accepting the donation from Ervin, calling it “exploitative” and a “gimmick”.

“There is no doubt the kid could have been patriotic but they should have declined and said 'thank you very much, it's a very nice gesture,” she had said. - Mkini