Showdown at the OTK corral
By Reina
THE commentary in yesterday’s Sunday Star probably wanted to make MCA President Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat look like John Wayne trying to clean up vermin-infested Dodge City and that he (OTK) has been as misunderstood as James Dean.
Problem is OTK does not emerge looking like a hero.
All it looks like is a feeble and desperate attempt by Baradan Kuppusamy to paint OTK as a noble man who is determined to clean up the mess made by others in the PKFZ scandal in ‘Tee Keat takes the hard – but right – course’
This is how it starts:
AS far as whistle blowing goes, there is simply no comparison to what MCA president Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat has done with the Port Klang Free Zone issue.
Ong’s battle for transparency and accountability over the PKFZ fiasco is significant as his actions tally with the new mood in the country post 2008 – to punish culprits and make them accountable for massive loss of public funds and, if possible, recover the losses.
For that, he is now facing enemies within and without as he battles to make the people behind the PKFZ fiasco own up for the huge losses.
As MCA president, Cabinet member and dogged reformer, Ong has no comparison in the higher reaches of Government for his single-minded mission to reveal the truth behind the PKFZ fiasco and punish the culprits.
But Baradan’s overboard attempt to make OTK look like a lone hero in a big bad world backfired as Prime Minister issued a comment saying that the government was not indifferent towards the PKFZ scandal.
Since day one, OTK has been wanting to cash in on this scandal. When he was made Transport Minister after the 2008 elections, all eyes were on him to see how he was going to deal with the then freshly unearthed PKFZ issue by R. Nadeswaran of The Sun.
OTK said he would investigate this issue and get to the bottom of things and there was a glimmer of hope as far as the public was concerned. He is probably hero material after all, the public thought.
