Wednesday January 9, 2013

Chua: Claims that PM suffered a stroke a ploy to create chaos in the country

KUALA LUMPUR: The MCA has accused the Opposition of spreading the rumour that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had suffered a stroke.

“It is the work of an Opposition bent on creating a chaotic environment in the country,” said party president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek, commenting on speculation in some Internet blogs over the weekend that the Prime Minister was not healthy.

Najib himself has assured the people that he was healthy and advised them not to listen to the rumour.

Dr Chua said he and other MCA leaders had received numerous calls to check on the validity of the rumour.

“This is a ploy by the Opposition aimed at tarnishing the cooperation among the Barisan Nasional parties to create an unstable environment and diminish voter support for the Prime Minister and the Barisan,” he said after chairing the MCA central committee meeting here yesterday.

Slamming the rumour as “gutter politics”, Dr Chua also advised the people not to listen to such speculation.

Regarding the DAP polls results that was changed due to a purported technical glitch, he said the party's central executive committee should be re-elected.

“The DAP claimed they had traced the mistake earlier but this raises more questions. If there were mistakes, why did the CEC continue to appoint its top leaders?

“A CEC member who later turned out to be invalid took part in the process. This raises the question over its legitimacy,” he said, citing the example of Umno being deregistered years ago because several invalid branches had taken part in the party elections.

He said it was surprising that the DAP, being a party that trumpeted the Ubah slogan, spotted its mistake days after its party polls.

“In our party (MCA) elections, there is no room for such a mistake because we tabulate and audit our votes immediately,” said Dr Chua, who also questioned DAP's capability in administering a country and changing the lives of 28 million people when it could not even manage 1,800 delegates efficiently.

On another matter, Dr Chua said MCA's four ministers would raise the party's concerns over the minimum wage policy, which took effect on Jan 1, at the Cabinet meeting today.

He said minimum wage would affect a lot of small and medium industries (SMIs) which depend on foreign workers.

He reiterated that levy on foreign workers as well as their transport and housing costs could be forked out by the employees themselves as a way to ease the burden of the industries.

The minimum wage is set at RM900 a month for peninsular Malaysia and RM800 for Sabah and Sarawak.

News

Wednesday January 9, 2013

Chua: Claims that PM suffered a stroke a ploy to create chaos in the country