The DAP leader, who is also Lim’s special officer, said the new government believed that Malaysians had a right to the truth, regardless of whether the truth was painful or not.
He was referring to remarks by Tengku Razaleigh during his June 19 interview with Astro Awani where he said Lim’s statement that the national debt was RM1 trillion had caused “people to sell their shares”.
Tengku Razaleigh said Lim had lumped contingent liabilities into the debt and that was why it was RM1 trillion.
Pua said in a statement that the Pakatan Harapan government would not “succumb to the obsessive tendency to hide the truth from the public, which has in turn resulted in corrupt practices to astronomical proportions”.
It was only when the government made transparency an integral part of its administration could the nation’s future be protected as the leadership could take the necessary steps to rectify misdeeds or wrongdoings, he said.
“Tengku Razaleigh is at best ignorant, or at worst, deceitful in placing the blame of the falling stock market on the finance minister’s exposes.
“Shouldn’t a candidate for the Umno presidency be well aware of the fact that global equity markets have been falling in the past few days due to various external factors, including the political crisis in Italy, the apparent China-US trade war and the prospect of further rate hikes in the US?
“In fact, the KL Composite has been one of the least affected to date. For the month of June up until the 19th, the equity market in Bangkok, Singapore, Seoul and Hong Kong had all fallen by 5.0%, 4.2%, 3.6% and 3.3% respectively. Would Tengku Razaleigh blame Lim Guan Eng’s exposés for their fall as well?
“In contrast, the KLCI had fallen by only 1.5% in the same period. Would Tengku Razaleigh then praise the finance minister for the ‘performance’ instead?”
Pua said the government was not overly concerned about short-term fluctuations of the stock market.
“The government is rightly more interested in the long-term growth of our economy based on solid, transparent and truthful foundations, which will ultimately translate to the continued appreciation of the stock markets.”
Yesterday, PKR de facto leader and former finance minister Anwar Ibrahim had also spoken about the need for Lim to take it slow on exposing scandals. He advised Lim to let other ministries and government agencies expose the scandals while the finance minister focused on pacifying and instilling confidence in investors.
It had earlier been reported that foreign investors had been selling off stocks listed on Bursa Malaysia for a seventh straight week, while fund managers had been offloading Malaysian bonds after the general election.