KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 25 — MCA has thrown its support behind Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan who yesterday represented a coalition of 50 NGOs and urged the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government to honour its election pledges and promises made.
MCA secretary-general Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun said the party praises Ambiga for coming out and saying that the civil society organisations she represented will not forgive PH should it decide to backpedal on its election promise to reform government-linked companies (GLCs).
“Post GE-14, Ambiga has remained true to holding the government of the day accountable to their words and deeds, be it Barisan Nasional or PH holding office.
“I believe people will support Ambiga and all NGOs who stand firm with their beliefs and continue the battle against any injustice,” she said in a statement here.
Ambiga who was the former National Human Rights Society president had in a press conference yesterday announced the formation of the GLC Reform Cluster consisting of 50 NGOs including Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4), Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS), G25 and Gabungan Pembebasan Akademik.
Chew also listed several unfulfilled and broken promises since PH took power in May last year.
Some of the promises she listed were the delay in the recognising the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) following a detailed study within the next five years (Promise 50), lifting the moratorium on oppressive laws (Promise 27), reneging on local council elections (Promise 25) and refusal to ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) (Promise 26).
Among other broken promises Chew listed also include the reinstatement of Sales and Services Tax that led to increase in prices (Promise 2) and the appointment of politicians to GLCs such as Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali and Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to Khazanah Nasional Bhd’s board of directors and Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla as chairman of the Penang Regional Development Authority (Promise 22).
Chew called upon all to support Ambiga in ensuring and insisting that the new government honours their election promises by holding them accountable.
