NO ONE TO BLAME BUT MIC FOR YOUR WOES – MAHATHIR TELLS INDIANS POINT-BLANK EVEN AS SABOTEURS TRY TO CREATE PANDEMONIUM AT EVENT

A QUESTION and answer session with Dr Mahathir Mohamad came to a premature end after members of the audience asked the former prime minister about his track record with the Indian community.

Dr Mahathir was taking questions that had been submitted during registration when two in the audience stood up to ask why he had not resolved the problems in MIC when he was prime minister.

Former MIC central working committee member KP Samy said: “As prime minister then, why didn’t you step in to help the Maika and Aimst University issues that caused many problems for the Indians?”.

He said although the two entities received assistance from the government, the Indian community did not benefit, nor did they own the two entities which belonged to select leaders.

At this point, the emcee interrupted to call a stop to the session, but Dr Mahathir indicated that he wanted to respond.

“Can I try to answer this?” said Dr Mahathir.

“In the first place, I’m not the creator of Maika Holding. It was created by MIC, with the leaders’ consent. After that, there was bad management and that was how many Indians lost a lot of money.

“The government could help but it could not manage the funds that were given. The same thing happened with regards to the university. We gave the permission and we gave the money but what happened was something else.

“And I think this is where (I would repeat what) I said just now – the Indians need not just one party and certainly not one man alone.

“In the time that I was in government, I only saw one leader. There was no change. And once he’s there you can’t change him. And what he does, his followers support. Otherwise he won’t be there.”

He said PH gave Indians more choices as they could choose to be represented by multiracial parties such as PKR and DAP.

“Then there will be competition to be the more popular. And as such, the Indians will be better represented.”

The crowd appeared satisfied with the answer as the emcee announced the end of the session. But a youth whose question had not been answered stood up to protest, which led to a brief shouting match between him and the organisers. Dr Mahathir defused the situation by saying he would take two more questions.

In the end, Dr Mahathir answered three questions before the session was closed.

The evening ended peacefully enough as the audience clustered around the 92-year-old to take photos with him before he left with his wife Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali.

Maika was conceived in 1982, under then MIC president S. Samy Vellu, to enable Malaysian Indians to participate in the country’s economic growth.

However, Maika failed to give investors good returns and in 2000, it was taken over by tycoon G Gnanalingam’s G Team Resources, which paid RM106 million to resolve problems and pay off shareholders.

– https://www.themalaysianinsight.com