Parti Rakyat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Pedas-Pedas Cili Api 145
(3hb September 2000)
Menteri Terima Cek Rasuah Untuk Pergau?
Seorang teman mengirim kepada Cili Api satu petikan berita daripada akbar
The Observer, 3hb September 2000. Akhbar tersebut (Bahagian Perdagangan),
melaporkan seorang peguam yang terkenal di England mendedahkan kepadanya
mengenai rasuah yang melibatkan seorang Menteri Malaysia. Mengikut peguam
itu, seorang yang dikenali sebagai Pengerusi syarikat Balfour Beatty
mengakui dengan bangga, dalam satu majlis jamuan di Department of Trade,
bagaimana beliau menyerahkan sendiri sekeping cek kepada Menteri itu sebagai
rasuah untuk mendapat kontrak Empangan Pergau.
Sebenarnya rasuah berkaitan pembinaan empang ini memang sudah lama dibongkar
oleh akhbar Time (London) beberapa tahun dulu. Tetapi ini kali pertama
timbul cerita tentang pengakuan pengerusi syarikat itu tentang penyerahan
cek rasuah kepada seorang Menteri. Cili Api harap BPR akan membuka fail
untuk menyiasat perkara ini. Pada masa yang sama Cili Api suka menggesa juga
supaya anggota parlimen kita akan mengemukakan soalan dalam Parlimen
mengenainya.
Untuk pengetahuan umum, Cili Api turunkan di bawah petikan artikel dalam
akhbar Observer itu.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcomme to my hall of infamy. The Golden Vulture Awards: Step forward Sony,
Ford, Wackenhurt and Balfour Beatty to take the dishonours.
At absolutely no one's request, we hereby announce the winners of Inside
Corporate America's First Annual Golden Vulture Awards:
(...snipped ...because not relevant)
... The Damned-If-You-Do Award to ... Balfour Beatty.
In July, Inside corporate America published comments by one of Britain's top
corporate lawyers. He told us that, in 1997, at a Department of Trade
reception, a man identified as chairman of construction company Balfour
Beatty, announced with enormous pride that he personally had handed over the
cheque to the government minister for the Pergau dam bribe' in Malaysia.
Not unexpectedly, that week's mail brought a note from Balfour Beatty.
Spokesman Tim Sharp wrote that he had spoken to The Observer's source, who
'denies absolutely having said what is attributed to him'. The company
demanded a retraction.
There was something odd about this complaint. The company seemed to
challenge only the wording of the allegation, not the substance. For
clarification, I wrote to the company asking for an answer to a simple and
far more relevant question: 'Did Balfour Beatty pay bribes in Malaysia – yes
or no?' We received no reply.
This is a difficult time for Balfour Beatty. A consortium to which the
company belongs faces new charges of bribery, this time over another dam
project in Lesotho in southern Africa. I thought the company deserved an
extra chance to clear its name. So I called Sharp.
Obs: Was a payment made to a government official by Balfour Beatty, its
chairman or an agent for its chairman regarding the Pergau Dam project, yes
or no?
BB: I tell you I've worked with some journalists in my time!
Obs: Did you pay a bribe?
BB: I like your approach.
Obs: I just want to know if you bribed the Malaysians.
BB: We could spend the rest of the afternoon ...
(We nearly did. This continued for almost an hour.)
Obs: I'm worried about the issue of bribery and corruption.
BB: Aren't we all?
Obs: I'm happy to print 'Balfour Beatty states unequivocally that no payment
was made to a Malaysian official.'
BB: I suggested to you that you might have misled people.
How had The Observer led our readers astray?
BB: The thing you wrote has been denied flatly by your alleged source.
Indeed, the company had received a letter from the lawyer this paper had
quoted. I asked Sharp to read it twice during our interview. Only on the
second reading did he include this:
BB: [from the letter] 'I do not deny the accuracy of the words attributed to
me in the article.'
Oh. Well, in that case, along with the company's Golden Vulture Award, which
has been deposited in a numbered Swiss account, Inside corporate America
offers the following correction: 'We hereby retract the statements made
regarding Balfour Beatty's alleged boasting of corrupt practices on the
grounds that our article was wholly accurate.'
End.
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