Huan – Between Gerakan,Umno,Tiong and the deep blue sea
“Maybe, not many are aware that Huan is linked to Tiong King Sing, yeah, the chairman of BN Backbenchers Club and Bintulu MP,” a political source told Suara Keadilan.
By Wong Choon Mei, Suara Keadilan
Much has been written in the past week of Gerakan vice president Huan Cheng Guan, his unhappiness with his party purportedly over internal issues, and the possibility of him joining Pakatan Rakyat partner PKR.
His party boss Koh Tsu Koon has expressed surprise at his threat to leave Gerakan and take with him thousands of grassroots members.
The Gerakan central working committee was just as merciless, slapping him with a show-cause letter for openly criticisng Penang chieftain Teng Hock Nan.
Meanwhile, PKR leaders have been mostly silent although several Penang PKR officials have in immediate responses encouraged Huan to make the switch.
Yet not all political watchers believe that the Huan tango is as simple as it appears.
“Maybe, not many are aware that Huan is linked to Tiong King Sing, yeah, the chairman of BN Backbenchers Club and Bintulu MP,” a political source told Suara Keadilan.
“There are actually quite a number of higher-ups in the PKR who are afraid that Huan is just using the opposition as a bargaining tool to get Tiong out of trouble in the PKFZ disaster. I don’t think the PKR is going to roll out the red carpet for him just yet.”
See Najib first
Huan has been reported in the media as saying he wanted to speak to Prime Minister Najib Razak before making any final decision. The prime minister is currently in China on an official visit. He has refused to comment at all on the Port Klang Free Zone debacle, which has been tagged as Malaysia’s biggest financial scandal.
The PKFZ was modelled after the Jebel Ali free trade zone in the United Arab Emirates. It is the Malaysian government’s biggest investment ever in the port industry.
Meanwhile, the 48-year old Huan was Penang Gerakan and Barisan Nasional youth chief before becoming elected as party vice-president last year.
Previously a special officer to the former Penang deputy chief minister Ibrahim Saad, he also worked as Tiong’s personal assistant. He is currently the BN Backbenchers Club executive secretary.
“Actually, Huan is directly linked to Umno. He is believed to be one of their money bags, just like Tiong is. They are loners and don’t actually have to account to their parties because they have the Umno-backing,” the source said.
Who are the real puppet masters
Tiong, the treasurer-general for the Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party, hit the headlines last week when he was named along with two others in a PriceWaterhouseCoopers audit report.
In the audit, PwC revealed how massive cost overruns were chalked up by the Port Klang Authority, the overseer of the PKFZ project. It pinned the blame squarely on poor governance and conflicts of interest in dealings with third party firms. For example, Tiong is the majority shareholder of the project’s turnkey contractor Kuala Dimensi.
From an initial cost of RM1.9 billion in 2002, the PKFZ bill has jumped several fold to RM7.5 billion and could hit RM12.5 billion if a Ministry of Finance soft loan to the PKA is not restructured soon.
The PKA is a government agency under the Transport Ministry, a traditional bastion of BN component MCA. Yet the outsized bills that allegedly went unsanctioned by the cabinet raised has eyebrows.
“It is simply not possible for either the MCA or the MIC to be in control of so much funds. It is completely beyond their political capability and sphere of influence.
“The puppet masters are from another party, yes it is Umno again. Without the backing of the top Umno leaders, such a huge white elephant could never have occurred,” the source said.
