OSA in confusion
Feb 13th, 2007 by Tian
I am amazed with Nazri. Sometimes I wonder he is a chameleon or is suffering some form of schizophrenia. Last year (19 September 2006) Nazri told in the Parliament: “We need the OSA to carry out the government’s task efficiently and without disturbance.”
The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department now claimed that he disagrees with highway agreements being classified under OSA. In his talk on12 February at ASLI luncheon, Nazri maintained that he did not know why these documents were not being made public.
“These are public documents,” he said, “What is there to hide?”
People are now confused. Different cabinet members are saying different things. Cabinet members do not seem to attend the same meeting.
Last month (10 January) PM Abdullah Badawi was reported threatening to use OSA against we who exposed the agreement. Samy Vellu echoed this and said that the cabinet meeting on 31 January had directed the AG to take action against me and others.
A series of actions by the police followed. The 4 of us Dr Hatta, Ronie, Khalid and I were summoned to Bukit Aman. They then raided my offices. All these are tactics trying to intimate us.
Now Nazri said that he was absent in that particular cabinet meeting last month. He wanted to show that he is innocent from the decision to persecute us.
On the other hand, Samy alleged that he acted on cabinet decision. We know for a fact that the PM was overseas on the day of cabinet meeting too. Who had decided to take action against us?
Samy was seen to be in a state of agitation due to mounting criticism over his handling of highway concessions and the use of OSA.
NST on 12 February 2007 too noticed:
Are the vociferous criticisms about toll hikes taking a toll on Works Minister Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu?
The veteran politician who takes on the toughest attacks and has withstood many a challenge, yesterday lamented the blistering criticisms levelled against him.
Samy said he was seen as “a bad boy” because people thought he decides on the toll rates.
“It’s not my decision to raise the toll or to reduce it,” said Samy in a very annoyed tone.
Samy Vellu said toll rates were decided by the government and the Economic Planning Unit (EPU). “I’m a minister of the government and I implement the decision made by the Cabinet.
”Privatization is purely an EPU decision. It is then approved by the Cabinet and the Ministry of Works takes over. The ministry has to announce the toll rates, has to carry all the burden and has to face all the scolding.”
Poor Samy. I could not help to pity him. Has the cabinet forsaken him and let him bear all the blames?
Finally I still want to know what is Pak Lah’s view? Is the PM trying to embarrass Samy?
hey, everyone for himself now that shit has hit the fan so to speak. ask mr ong and mr lim and other cabinet ministers and see whether they have agreed to classify the toll documents. I give you the answer..majority will tell you “i cant remember” or ” i dont know”.
by the way, no sympathies for mr samy. remember he called you a small boy and try to nail you good. but this time, mr samy knows he hit a boulder and as usual of him, try to portray himself as the good guy now by asking the cabinet to make the toll documents public. hey, thats red herring coz the toll documents were not classified and have been seen by many third parties way before you.
how can you have sympathies for him and trust him? remember lunas, maika, telecom shares etc…this is longer than your shopping list ( when the last shopping trip was 3 montsh ago).
Dear yh,
I will never forgive the ‘crimes’ committed by Samy. I ‘pity’ him because he is forced to retreat ungracefully. The people has won, but not yet fully. We are yet to see whether these clowns dare to reveal the toll contracts in the next few days.
regards,
Tian