"It was Anwar who had directed the federal domination to extend the loan repayment interval by another five years. Payment.

PENANG: Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had directed the Penang administration to advance the repayment aeon of Business Focus Sdn Bhd’s (BSFB) credit when he was the spokesman zenith minister and finance minister in 1997, last chief minister Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon said yesterday. Koh said this in reaction to his successor Lim Guan Eng’s question on why he had given different privileges to BFSB which resulted in the Penang Development Corporation (PDC) losing at least RM9 million. Lim had said that when Koh was PDC chairman during his occupation as the prime minister, he had granted specific favours to the company.

BFSB had bought over PDC’s subsidiary gathering Penang Shipbuilding Corporation Sdn Bhd (PSC) and its touch in an contract dated April 27, 1992 for RM29 million, including deplane in Pulau Jerejak. Lim had assumed that a substitute of curvaceous pay being given over a common period, BFSB was given six years until May 31, 2008 to produce results the RM29 million. BFSB defaulted on the terminating RM9 million payment and to epoch has still not paid up the quantity and has since hurt up. Koh said PDC had sold PSC to BFSB as it was a loss-making venture.

"We meditating it was a credible deal for RM29 million and we allowed the friends six years to retaliate up the loan. "However, in 1997, the and and private limited company started to oversight on the payments just before the financial crisis. "It was Anwar who had directed the testify supervision to outspread the accommodation repayment term by another five years. "The concern started paying the allowance but after that, defaulted again. By then we had sedate RM20 million and ignoring (the government) taking constitutional action to recover the loan, the partnership wound up and we failed to obtain any more payment from the company," Koh added.

When asked why the land rule had acted on a call instruction from Anwar as an alternative of being accountable to the people, Koh said the nation government renegotiated the arrangement and gave the company a chance to recover from the productive crisis. "We were considerate because they were paying very well. But much to our surprise, they even sold the go ashore to another flock and wound up," Koh added. In response, Lim said he had criterion to show that Koh failed to hire enterprise to revive the amount owed even after Anwar was sacked from the management and jailed, Bernama reported.

He told the pack that the posted state government’s investigation showed that Anuar Shaari, the classified secretary to the then underwrite minister, had sent a letter dated May 22, 1998 to the PDC unrestricted overseer on the outstanding loan. Lim said the inscribe requested PDC to appearance into the matter and brief the ministry about the company’s proposal. He said he had to expose the letter to the media in answer to Koh’s claim that he had acted on Anwar’s directive as the then fund minister.

Tonight, Lim and Koh will be at the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka convention hall to moot an so-called land scam in Penang.

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