Confident that all is above board, Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has challenged Universiti Malaya's political economics professor Terence Gomez to feel free to check DAP's accounts.

Gomez had accused the opposition of not supporting the initiative for transparent political funding drawn up by him and Transparency International (Malaysia) just before the 13th general election, when he met with several members of the opposition in Parliament in a roundtable discussion.

Lim, who is also the DAP secretary-general, said he supported political financing and accountability, as it encouraged a level playing field.

"We sell tickets for dinners and all this is accounted for to the Registrar of Societies. We raise money from the internet and all of it is also accounted for, " he said at the International Malaysian Law Conference in Kuala Lumpur today.

"We (The DAP) do not have slush funds from overseas," he quipped to the laughter of the audience, adding that he would welcome Gomez to check the party's political funding.

Gomez, had voiced concern as his study showed that even government parties were getting funds from covert funding like from foreigners, 1MDB and even the underworld. He held that civil society wanted financing in politics to be reviewed, to ensure transparency and that election laws are not violated.

Following that, he had proposed to the opposition and also to BN for proper and transparent political funding as he questioned that while candidates in elections may have limit in expenses as they are required by law and the Election Commission, there are no check and balances for political parties.

This, he said was before Najib mooted a proper political funding regulation last year, following the fallout of the 1MDB fiasco that saw money entering into his personal account and also allegedly being used for the 13th general election.

‘Good luck with BN’

Gomez said that he has brought this matter up with DAP’s (national publicity secretary) Tony Pua before the 13th general election in the roundtable discussion, who had replied ‘no’ to the proposal as now the opposition are getting money from business following the 2008 general election. This was also shot down by PAS (now Amanah) MP Khalid Samad.

Following that, Gomez said he approached the BN, and this led Khalid to wish him “Good luck”.

Minister Nazri Aziz, the UM academician said, was the sole person to hear him out and the minister replied that if BN were to implement this then “the party (coalition) would be dead.

To this, Lim said Gomez should have approached him directly and not to others as he had made the pledge of transparency in political funding in DAP with the G25 group of moderates.

“Ask the G25 and check with them,” said the Penang chief minister, to which Gomez disputed this, saying that what he got from the G25 group was different

This led to the moderator, Ambiga Sreenavasan, to ask both of them to settle their differences after the forum.

Gomez warned that what the opposition parties are doing in not supporting his proposed reforms is akin to following what the BN is doing now.

He had also warned the opposition that appointing party members to hold board of directorship posts at state-linked government companies as a form of political patronage, which can be seen as like corruption and this is similarly practised by BN.

“GLCs should be managed by professionals and there should not be politicians or those associated with politics involved,” he said.

The UM professor said if one were to look at the federal government GLCs, those appointed as board members also hold party posts within BN.

Lim said while it was true that some members from the DAP and PKR hold board posts within the Penang state GLCs, he vouched that the entities are run by professionals.

The Penang chief minister and Gomez was among the four panel members that also comprise of Bersih 2.0 chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah and Islamic Renaissance Front chairperson Dr Ahmad Farouk Musa.