The Star

Khalid fires back at PKR panel

BY RAZAK AHMAD, WANI MUTHIAH, LOH FOON FONG, MAZWIN NIK ANIS, NURBAITI HAMDAN, RAHIMY RAHIM,RASHVINJEET S. BEDI, AND AKIL YUNUS

Sticking to his guns: Khalid speaking to the media after the gathering with Jais personnel in Shah Alam.

PETALING JAYA: Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim has fired back at PKR’s disciplinary committee, telling it that it has no business questioning him on how the state is run.

Responding in a letter to the committee’s show-cause notice directing him to attend a hearing yesterday, the Selangor Mentri Besar said five of the issues raised had already been discussed at a state government meeting under the executive powers of the state administration.

The five issues were on a Bank Islam loan, the state’s water restructuring deal, the revised MB’s allowance, the increased fees for business licences and the proposed Kinrara-Damansara Expressway (Kidex).

“The PKR disciplinary committee is only authorised to hear issues related to party matters and not matters pertaining to how the state is run,” Khalid said in his letter to committee chairman Datuk Dr Tan Kee Kwong.

The letter was delivered to the PKR headquarters by his political secretary Mustapha Mohd Talib yesterday.

In the letter, Khalid also requested that his hearing be postponed from 3pm yesterday to next Friday because he was busy.

Khalid lamented the fact that the notice summoning him to the disciplinary hearing had requested that he explain five additional issues that were not mentioned in the earlier show-cause letter issued him on Tuesday.

“This reinforces my insistence that any accusation made towards me must be stated clearly and in detail. I do not understand how these five issues are related to the Kajang Move and my refusal to relinquish the MB’s post, which was the focal point in the show-cause letter.

“It is also clear that even the disciplinary committee is unsure and inconsistent in regard to my alleged wrongdoing,” he said.

The embattled Mentri Besar also questioned the haste in which the disciplinary hearing was called, claiming that he was unfairly treated after being given less than 24 hours’ notice to attend the hearing.

“If they insist on going ahead with the hearing, then they must provide me the names of those who will be present, the procedure that will be adopted, if I can be represented by a lawyer, and if I am permitted to bring my officers along,” he added.

Met later by reporters at the State Secretariat building in Shah Alam after an event that was also attended by the Sultan of Selangor, Khalid said he would wait for a reply on his request to postpone his hearing.

Asked whether he had discussed the latest political development in the state with the Sultan, Khalid said he had not.

Liow: Let people decide on Selangor

Giving and receiving: Wee receiving a gift of appreciation from GD Group founder Datuk Yeat Sew Chuong after the signing ceremony at Bankers Club.

BENTONG: Selangor Pakatan Rakyat should dissolve the state assembly and return power to the people to decide who should lead the state, said MCA president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.

He said Pakatan should do this since it could not resolve the issue on who should be the mentri besar.

“Let the people decide who they want in power next,” he said after launching a new building of the MCA branch in Bentong yesterday.

PKR wants Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim to step down to be replaced by Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, but Khalid has refused to budge.

PKR’s decision has received support except from PAS leaders who have come out in defence of Khalid.

Liow said the power struggle within Pakatan appeared as though PAS would have the last say, and not DAP or PKR.

Pakatan had not been able to resolve the power struggle, the hudud issue or decide on its own shadow cabinet because the members had their own agenda to pursue rather than the people’s agenda, he said.

In KUALA LUMPUR, MCA deputy president Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong questioned PKR’s move to make public Khalid’s so-called wrongdoings now, saying it smelled of an agenda.

“I am shocked that PKR has resorted to washing dirty linen in public.

“If it assumes that people enjoy (strategic director) Rafizi Ramli’s story (on Khalid’s alleged wrongdoings), the party better think again.

“I don’t think people are amused,” he told reporters after witnessing the signing of a joint venture agreement between GD Development Sdn Bhd and its Chinese partners Fugland Group, Debao Group and Suzhou Zhengyuan Landscape Group to develop Green Beverly Hills Phase 2 in Nilai.

Dr Wee said since all the three Pakatan parties were represented in the state government, Khalid’s actions and decisions on state matters, including on the alleged land deal for which he was now being blamed for, could have been “checked” especially by the executive councillors.

“(Are you) telling the people that there was only one person in charge of the state for the past six years and now you are putting the all blame on him,” he added.

Dr Wee said unlike what was happening in Selangor’s Pakatan-led government, Barisan Nasional would never resort to airing its disagreements in public.

“It is normal to disagree.

“You cannot have all the 13 Barisan partners to agree all the time but we will not wash our dirty linen in public,” he said, adding that the coalition’s culture was to discuss matters “frankly and openly behind closed doors”.