PETALING JAYA: MCA president Wee Ka Siong today clarified that not a single sen received in funds to Tunku Abdul Rahman University College (TAR UC) from the government or donors were channelled to the party’s accounts.
“It must be stressed that MCA leaders have never betrayed any trust or committed any wrongdoing in administrating the board of trustees of TAR UC.
“All members of the TAR UC board of trustees do not receive any salaries, remuneration or allowances.
“I challenge any parties to come forward and prove that members of TAR UC’s board of trustees receive salaries, remuneration or allowances,” he said in a statement today in response to a statement by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng asking the board to relinquish their posts if they wanted government funding.
Wee said Lim had deliberately refused to give matching grants to TAR UC due to his political grudges against MCA.
“Does he think he is the king of the nation and can do whatever he wants?
“Even when Dr Mahathir Mohamad was the finance minister, education minister and prime minister, from 1981 to 2003, he had never failed to allocate matching grants for TAR College then.
“What’s the difference between the structure then and now? Was Chow Kon Yeow, Teresa Kok or any other alumni appointed as the chairman of board of trustees of TAR College during the tenure of the 4th prime minister?
“The fact remains the same, that is that MCA founded TAR College in 1968 and subsequently elevated it to TAR University College in 2012.”
Wee also clarified that Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), also founded by MCA, had never applied for a matching grant from the government.
Wee said it looked like the government budget was decided based on the whims and fancies of Lim.
“Is Lim so powerful that he gets to decide whether TAR UC receives the government funding or not, instead of the entire Cabinet?
“Did he purposely leave out the allocation (matching grant) for TAR UC from the 2019 Budget and 2020 Budget so that he can set this condition (that MCA give up control of the board) and then reinstate the funding?
“He had the cheek to say he could ‘give back’ RM30 million to TAR UC should MCA leaders step down as the members of its trustee board. So it’s all up to what he likes to do?
“And to add insult to injury, TAR UC’s development expenditure allocation was drastically cut to just RM1 million after a proposed RM24 million allocation for 2020.
“This is inexplicably unreasonable when in 2019, TAR UC was allocated RM5.5 million in development expenditure.” - Mkini
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