DAP national chairperson Lim Kit Siang has urged Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to review the Registrar of Societies' (ROS) decision in approving the registration of the Kuala Lumpur Chinese Assembly Hall (KLCAH).

Claiming that the approval was "improper and without strict compliance with the law", he said this was also an opportunity for Abdullah, who is also home minister, to honour his pledge to lead a government which is "clean, incorruptible, modest and beyond suspicion".

"The Registrar's extraordinary approval of KLCAH has raised many legitimate questions about whether it is a gross abuse and unlawful exercise of power, and whether it served any ulterior agenda because of the opaque, undemocratic and suspicious circumstances of its approval," Lim said.

He said there is no reason for the ROS not to know that the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (SCAH) constitutionally adopts both the Federal Territory and Selangor Chinese-based associations as members.

"If the applicants for the KLCAH headed by Liew Poon Siak had withheld this material information, then it would be a case of gross deception of the ROS," he added.

Before approving the registration of KLCAH, Lim said the ROS should have taken fully into account Section 7 (3)(d) of the Societies Act 1966 which provides that "The Registrar shall refuse to register a local society where the name under which the society is to be registered (i)

appears toso nearly resembles the name of such other society as is likely to deceive the members of the public or members of either society; (ii) is identical to that of any other existing local society".

SCAH not consulted

The DAP chief said that in view of the existence of the SCAH for the past 80 years as the umbrella organisation for the Chinese-based associations for both Federal Territory and Selangor, the minimal the Registrar should have done before deciding on the KLCAH application would have been firstly, to consult the SCAH and secondly, to ensure that the application was proper, bona fide and above-board in being representative of a cross-section of the associations in Kuala Lumpur and not the attempt by an individual or a group of individuals with an ulterior agenda of their own.

Lim said that as Abdullah has called on Barisan Nasional leaders and the Malaysian people to tell him the truth, he should allow the SCAH and the Kuala Lumpur Chinese associations the opportunity to tell him the truth about the gross impropriety of the registration of the KLCAH and in a matter of three weeks on the eve of retirement of Mahathir after 22 years as prime minister.

As the extraordinary and most improper approval of the ROS for the KLCAH has raised legitimate and widespread "suspicions" about its motive, purpose and agenda, he said the KLCAH controversy has become another early test for Abdullah in his first pledge as prime minister to lead a government which is "clean, incorruptible, modest and beyond suspicion".

Lim added that Abdullah should summon the ROS to give him a full report on the circumstances for the secretive and suspicious approval of KLCAH so that he could give a public assurance that all the legitimate objections and reservations by SCAH and the Chinese community throughout the country would be fully addressed.