Show evidence if you have it, Guan Eng tells Zuraida over direct deals

(FMT) – Former finance minister Lim Guan Eng urged Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin today to reveal documents on two directly negotiated projects involving her ministry.

This comes after Zuraida said she was prepared to hand over the documents – letters purportedly from her ministry’s secretary-general to the finance ministry to seek approval for direct negotiations on a RM170.3 million solid waste project.

Zuraida had said she was not aware of the projects and claimed that the direct negotiation for the solid waste project was directly taken up by Lim.

Lim refuted this and, in a statement today, said such a huge project could not have been approved without Zuraida’s knowledge.

“She cannot hide behind the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in not revealing all the letters related to the Taman Beringin solid waste project worth RM170.3 million,” he said.

He said if there was a letter from him instructing direct negotiation, Zuraida would have exposed this.

“In the interest of truth and transparency, reveal all relevant letters from me, Zuraida, the Treasury secretary-general and the housing and local government ministry secretary-general.

“Zuraida should not claim existence of such a letter and dare not reveal it in public,” he said.

Previously, Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz released a list of 101 projects which he said were directly negotiated under the Pakatan Harapan government, with the housing and local government ministry awarding two projects – a RM170.3 million solid waste project in Taman Beringin, Kepong, and a RM501,000 software accounting system.