The Sarawak DAP wants the federal government to start investigating politicians whose family members own valuable property overseas if it truly intends to get to the bottom of the illicit outflow of fund from Malaysia, its secretary, Chong Chieng Jen, said in Kuching today.

azlan “An example of such politicians would be Chief Minister Taib Mahmud whose family members were reported on the Sarawak Report website as owning billions of ringgit worth of property in the US, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada,” he said.

“The ownership of such property overseas by Taib’s family has been reported on the website since last year. Until today, no explanation has been provided by Taib regarding whether the reports on the website are true, and if so, how the family members got the money to buy such valuable property,” Chong, who is also the Bandar Kuching member of parliament and Kota Sentosa state assemblyperson, said.

chong chieng jen interview 141108 03 Chong ( left ) said when the DAP state assemblyperson for Pending, Violet Yong, spoke about Taib in the Sarawak state assembly on this issue in November last year, the whole text of her speech was deleted from the Hansard of the day.

“Such an unprecedented and improper act on the part of the speaker of the Sarawak state assembly in not recording the debate of a member in the House gave rise to even more suspicion over the matter.

“Are the reports on the Sarawak Report website on the property of Taib’s family overseas true? If so, how did Taib’s family members get the money to buy such property?

“Were the money illicitly taken out from Malaysia? These are the million dollar questions that most Sarawakians want to know and expect the authorities carrying out the investigation on the illicit financial outflow to investigate,” he said.

‘Set up RCI to probe illicit outflow’

Chong said the federal government ought to immediately set up an independent royal commission of inquiry to investigate into the massive illicit financial outflow from Malaysia as reported by the Global Financial Integrity, a Washington-based financial watchdog.

“Given the magnitude of the problem, a whopping RM889 billion from 2000 to 2009, and the potential of powerful politicians or their family members being involved in such illicit outflow of funds, Bank Negara does not have the required power and independence to carry out a thorough investigation into the matter,” he said.

He added that the amount of outflow was shocking, considering that the total expenditure of the federal government of Malaysia in 2008 was only RM170 billion.