The state chapter said the posting on Jan 26 was unintentionally shared by one of the administrators of its Facebook page without informing Johor MCA’s top leadership.

“The administrator, who has long retired from the Johor MCA office, admitted to a mistake in sharing an external party’s post. It was not written by Johor MCA or any MCA leader.

“The administrator no longer has access to the Johor MCA page, which is now being managed by new administrators. The controversial posting was also taken down yesterday,” Johor MCA said in a Facebook post.

Johor MCA also maintained that it was never its intention to offend Muslims or insult Islam.

“Once again, Johor MCA apologises to all Malaysian Muslims over what happened. We will be more careful to ensure that such an incident does not happen again.”

Umno Youth chief Dr Akmal Saleh had earlier demanded that Johor MCA apologise for the posting, which compared the government’s expenditure for Islamic development with the 50% toll discount given in conjunction with Chinese New Year.

The Melaka executive councillor also threatened to file police reports against Johor MCA if it did not apologise.

Akmal issued his statement based on a translation of the post, which was written in Chinese characters.