Stupid fellow ! Dr Ling, former Malaysian Transport Minister slams Attorney-General

 

UTAR Council Chairman Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik speaking to the media regarding UTAR Initiatives and Developments at the Sg Long Campus, Kajang on Tuesday.

KAJANG: There was nothing wrong in the land purchase for the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) project, said former transport minister Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik.

“The Cabinet was correct in deciding on that. It’s only the A-G (attorney-general who) thinks it’s a wrong decision. Stupid fellow,” he said at a press conference here yesterday to announce Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman’s (Utar) latest initiatives and developments.

Dr Ling also said the land was sold to PKFZ at RM21 psf. He added that the land is now valued between RM70 to RM80psf, saying that it was already a profit.

Dr Ling and another former transport minister Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy was charged for cheating the Government over the PKFZ project. Both were later acquitted.

Dr Ling was acquitted on Oct 25 last year on three charges of cheating the Government over the PKFZ land deal. The trial began in August 2011.

Justice Ahmadi Asnawi, in delivering the judgment last year, held that the defence had managed to raise reasonable doubt into the prosecution’s case over the main and two alternative charges against Dr Ling.

Justice Ahmadi added that there was no evidence on who initiated the PKFZ project involving the procurement of the land.

The court found that Dr Ling’s evidence was corroborated by the testimony of former prime minister and then-finance minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Justice Ahmadi added that it was apparent Dr Ling merely signed off documents presented to him by his officers and later made the presentation to the Cabinet.

He said that when the Cabinet decided to approve the purchase of the land by Port Klang Authority (PKA) from Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd (KDSB), the Cabinet knew that the value of RM25psf did not include the total amount of interest payable and that interest of 7.5% would be payable over and above RM25psf.

Besides that, Justice Ahmadi said that the purchase of the land was not decided over a single Cabinet meeting but rather it was deliberated periodically between March 1999 and Nov 6, 2002.

Utar plans training hospital 

KAJANG: Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (Utar) plans to open a specialist training hospital in Perak that will be named the Sultan Azlan Shah Hospital.

Utar council chairman Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik (pic) said the specialist training hospital would be located near the university’s Kampar campus, though he stopped short of mentioning any time frame for construction.

“The hospital will offer treatment using traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as well as Western or conventional medicine,” he told reporters yesterday to announce the university’s latest initiatives and developments.

Dr Ling said the hospital, which would serve the public, would be used to train medical students.

According to the Utar website, the university has been accepting students for its Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) programme since May 2010, while it was also the first institution approved to offer a bilingual TCM degree programme in Malaysia from May 2011.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Dr Ling said the land for the hospital had been donated to Utar by Perak ruler, Sultan Azlan Shah.

Utar president Prof Datuk Dr Chuah Hean Teik said the university would help to build and operate the hospital.

Separately, MCA president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai announced that Dr Ling would helm the newly set up MCA Higher Education Institutions Coordination Committee.

The committee is tasked with streamlining the courses offered by the four educational initiatives of MCA: Tunku Abdul Rahman University College (TARUC), Tunku Abdul Rahman University (Utar), Kojadi Institute and the Institute Of Childhood Education Studies and Community Education.

Liow noted that they were “overlapping” courses offered by TARUC and Utar, especially after the former was upgraded from a college to university college last year.

Asked on why Dr Ling was picked for the post, Liow said: “He is a veteran who has shown his commitment and contribution to the development of the two institutions.

“Now we want to further develop the MCA higher learning section, and we need a lot of effort to synchronise and synergise to ensure that we can perform better in this area,” he added.

Sources:

The Star/Asia News Network

 

Old and abandoned, now newborn baby found abandoned outside house !

Rescued: The baby that was found in Kampung Sungai Sebatang in Alor Setar.

ALOR SETAR: A teenager was awakened from her sleep by the cries of a newborn baby outside her house in Kampung Sungai Sebatang off Jalan Kuala Kedah here.

Normawani Ahmad, 17, said she was awakened by the baby’s cries at about 3am yesterday.

“I looked out the window and saw the wailing infant, who was placed on a red plastic mat. I also heard someone walking away from my house while the baby was crying,” she said when met at the Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital yesterday.

Normawani called her mother, who was sleeping at another daughter’s house next door. They found the baby with the umbilical cord still attached to the body.

“My mother cleaned up the baby and dressed him in my nephew’s clothes.

“We then lodged a police report,” she added.

Kota Setar OCPD Assist Comm Adzaman Mohd Jan said police were looking for the mother and the case has been classified as child abandonment under the Penal Code.

Sources: The Star/ANN

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Old and abandoned by children like trash !

The forgotten: Foong with an elderly inmate of Rumah Kasih in Taman Mutiara Barat.

PETALING JAYA: Each week, at least 10 elderly Malaysians end up in old folks homes and that is just the official average, based on centres registered under the Welfare Department.

According to department director-general Datuk Norani Hashim, an average of 536 elderly persons were placed in registered centres each year between 2009 and 2012.

“The actual number could be much higher as some privately run homes are not registered with the department,” she said.

She said between 1993 and last year, a total of 4,968 senior citizens were placed in 211 centres nationwide.

“Perak has the most number with 1,339 in 56 centres, followed by Selangor with 860 in 45 centres but only nine of the centres are under direct supervision of the department,” she added.

In Kuala Lumpur, Foong Peng Lam, the coordinator of Rumah Kasih, which takes in old folks and patients found abandoned in government hospitals, said at least one person was admitted each week.

He said most of the patients were abandoned because their families claimed they could not afford to take care of them.

“Their family members do not provide any form of financial assistance and do not come over to visit,” he said.

The home has taken in over 600 abandoned individuals since its inception in 2000.

“Weak elderly people who had collapsed by the roadside were also brought in by strangers.

“There were also those who were brought in by family members who never return to visit or take them home,” he said.

Foong said the number of abandoned patients had been increasing steadily – from seven in 2000, to the 60 at present.

Apart from Hospital Kuala Lumpur, the home has been taking in patients from Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Hospital Selayang, Tung Shin Hospital, Hospital Seremban, Hospital Sungai Buloh, University Malaya Medical Centre, Hospital Ampang and Hospital Kajang.

He said the hospitals would first try to contact the families, who would usually promise to take the patient home, but never turn up.

“This can go on for up to two months before they bring a patient in.

“Even when we manage to contact the families they usually refuse to take any responsibility,” he added.

Figures from the National Population and Family Development Board, an agency under the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, show that about 675,000 elderly parents did not receive financial support from their children in 2004 when the Fourth Malaysian Population and Family Survey was conducted.

 Abandoned by loved ones after becoming ‘worthless’ 

KUALA LUMPUR: S.K. Cheng, 65, spent three months at Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL), waiting for his family to take him home.

The diabetic collapsed while walking by the roadside in September last year.

He woke up in the hospital and was told that his left leg would have to be amputated below the knee.

“I did not take care of my children when they were younger. That is why they do not want me now. I could not afford to take care of them well because I did not have enough money,” he lamented at the Rumah Kasih in Cheras, his current home.

Cheng said he used to work in a coffee shop and lived with his wife and three children.

He said his wife passed away 10 years ago and his son and daughters soon moved on with their lives elsewhere.

They came to visit him at the hospital once, but that was the last time he saw them.

Another inmate, also surnamed Cheng, said she was also left at HKL for nearly three months before she was sent to the home.

The woman, in her 70’s, was bedridden after suffering a stroke.

Her son, in his 40s, did not want to take her home because he could not afford the medical bills.

“She used to work odd jobs and was living with her son before she became ill.

“Her son just dumped her, expecting the hospital to care for his mother,” said a caretaker at the home.

While most Rumah Kasih patients are elderly there is also a 36-year old woman known only as Chan.

She spent six weeks in Hospital Selayang without anyone in her family visiting her.

“I used to be happy. I was working as a cashier and was married with three young children.

“When I suffered a stroke and became paralysed, my husband left me at the hospital and left my kids with my father,” she said.

“He said he could not take me. Now that I cannot work anymore I am worthless and they do not want me.”

Contributed by  P Aruna, Farik Zolkepli, Zora Chan, and Vanes Devindran The Star/ANN

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