No shop accepts one-sided coins

By Shannon Teoh (The Malaysian Insider)

It has been somewhat surreal reading The Star of late. On Thursday, it ran a front page blurb which said, “Tee Keat: It’s a smear tactic.” Given that it is merely a blurb, one would forgive the country’s No. 1 English daily for making us turn to page four to find out what the transport minister was referring to.

The headline screamed “A diversion, says Ong” while the subhead explained further “MCA president: Duo trying to divert people’s attention from issue”.

So far, it has managed to mention Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat in three different ways and the topic of his statement in two but still not given us any clue as to what Ong might be talking about.

Better yet was the introductory paragraph: Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat has described the latest allegation against him by Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd CEO Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing as an attempt to divert the people’s attention from the Port Klang Free Zone issue.

Still no idea, then. It is only in paragraph five that we receive some illumination: Tiong had alleged that Ong had received a RM10mil “loan” from him for use by the MCA divisions while Kuala Dimensi deputy CEO Datuk Faisal Abdullah claimed that Ong’s ministry had used the company’s private jets freely, several times.

In and of itself, this is not all that strange. Most media outlets provide very succinct background to what is a running story, in this case, the PKFZ debacle.

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