Wong had never lied, says political secretary
KOTA KINABALU: Sandakan MP Stephen Wong has never lied and has been consistently honest on what he did and what he has done, according to his political secretary Phoong Jin Zhe.
“It is true that Wong did not participate in the debate on the Tourism Bill in the last Parliament sitting. And Wong never denied that. It is wrong of Tan for trying to paint Wong as a liar because Wong never said that he had opposed the bill in the official parliamentary proceedings,” said Phoong who is also DAP Sabah publicity secretary.
He was responding to Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Raymond Tan who made an accusation against Wong in a statement earlier.
Phoong said the truth is although Wong did not participate in the debate, he still worked extraordinarily hard to oppose the Tourism Bill. On 3 November 2016, Wong had talked to Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri bin Abdul Aziz over the bill and urged the federal government to stop tabling it in parliament.
That was half a year ago before it was tabled in the parliament. Phoong revealed a photo showing that Wong had indeed talked to Nazri at the corridor of Parliament. It showed that Wong had fought to oppose the bill even before the bill was tabled.
“It is a fact that Wong as a people’s representative had done his job to voice out the people’s concerns on this issue,” Phoong said in a statement yesterday.
Furthermore, Phoong criticized the Parliament and government led by Barisan Nasional (BN) for passing this bill at midnight and the speaker had also ignored parliamentarians’ call to postpone the bill to the next sitting.
“Only two hours were given to debate the bill, how could it be allowed for so many parliamentarians to debate it? Why such an important bill did not give sufficient time for parliamentarians to debate in the first place?” he asked.
“Within such short time given, each party can only send a few members of parliament to debate this bill and in this case, DAP sent Lim Guan Eng (Bagan), Anthony Loke (Seremban) and Steven Sim (Bukit Mertajam) to take part in the debate.
“It was consensus agreed among the MPs of DAP. And Wong had put his stance very clear that he and DAP representatives will definitely oppose this bill despite no opportunity given to debate and the bill would pass anyway,” said Phoong.
“Instead, Tan as BN minister should apologize to the people for implementing the tourism tax.
“Do not forget that this bill is brought up by BN, not Wong. It’s BN policy, not Wong’s bill. Wong shouldn’t be blamed, instead, Tan and BN must hold responsibility for implementing such a policy which had jeopardized and hurt the economy of Sabah,” he asserted.
“Unless Tan can prove that Wong had said he debated or opposed the bill in Parliament, or prove that Wong had lied, otherwise Tan should apologize to Wong.
“Obviously, Tan’s accusation is defamatory. We will consider taking legal action if necessary,” he said.