KUALA LUMPUR, March 28 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak today insisted Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng must explain a blogger’s allegation of corruption in the Penang undersea tunnel project before he will comment on the sale of Malaysia’s consulate building in Hong Kong.
Lim asserted in Parliament on Tuesday that the Najib administration approved the sale at a price that was allegedly nearly half a billion ringgit below fair value.
The Pekan MP and his Barisan Nasional (BN) colleagues responded then by heckling Lim with shouts of “tunnel!” that Lim ignored.
Today, the former prime minister again pressed Lim to respond to fugitive blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin’s blog posts claiming Penang excos were implicated by investigations into possible corruption in the undersea tunnel and three paired roads project.
“We can only comment when Guan Eng replies to whether RPK’s content is true or not,” he told reporters when met in Parliament today, referring to the acronym for Raja Petra.
Najib added that he will also get Datuk Seri Anifah Aman, who was the former Foreign Affairs minister, to answer on the building in Hong Kong.
On Monday, Najib dismissed claims that he had tried to sell the Malaysian building when he was in power, and told reporters that he had planned to develop it instead.
He said government assets should not be sold off but held until they appreciate in value, which will generate long-term income.
However, Lim had the following day said Najib, who was also the finance minister then, had agreed to sell the land and building in Hong Kong through direct negotiations at RM1.1 billion when there were offers at RM1.6 billion.
On March 19, Najib posted on his Facebook page concerns over media reports that the Malaysian government was looking to sell the Malaysian-owned 28-storey office building in Wanchai, Hong Kong.
