KENYATAAN AKHBAR

02 OGOS 2010

Kerajaan Negeri Selangor sentiasa merai pandangan pelbagai pihak berkaitan pentadbiran dan dasar-dasar termasuk dasar pemberian diskaun, insentif dan sebagainya.

Apa yang penting bagi kerajaan ialah akhirnya rakyat Selangor yang layak, dapat menikmati hasil dari dasar dan ketetapan tersebut. Ini tidak terkecuali di dalam mencari jalan terbaik mengenai permasalah air di negeri ini.

Kerajaan Persekutuan harus ingat kemelut air di Selangor bermula apabila Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor (Syabas) dibenarkan menaikkan tarif air tanpa mengambil kira beban tanggungan rakyat yang masih merangkak di dalam kemelut ekonomi global.

Kerajaan BN yang di pimpin oleh YB Dr Mohd Khir bin Toyo telah menandatangani perjanjian konsesi air dengan Syabas dimana syarikat itu dibenarkan menaikkan tarif sehingga 37% pada 2009, 25% pada 2012, 20% pada 2015, 10% pada 2018 dan 5% pada 2021.

Jelas, Kerajaan Pusat bukan sahaja gagal untuk membantu rakyat Selangor untuk mendapatkan kemudahan air yang murah malah gagal pula mengambil tindakan ke atas Dr Khir yang telah memberi konsesi secara cuai kepada syarikat kroni.

Dr Khir sepatutnya merasa malu untuk bercakap soal kepentingan rakyat Selangor dalam apa-apa topik sekalipun, baik air mahupun pasir kerana kecuaiannya telah menghalang hak rakyat Negeri Selangor daripada mendapatkan pekhidmatan air yang terbaik.

Akibatnya Kerajaan Pakatan Rakyat hari ini terpaksa berhadapan dengan syarikat konsesi yang tamak dan berani menuntut jumlah yang terlampau jika Kerajaan Negeri mahu mengambilalih pengurusan air Selangor yang bertujuan untuk memberi perkhidmatan air yang baik dengan harga yang berpatutan kepada rakyat.

Rakyat Selangor berhak untuk mengetahui cerita sebenar dan bagaimana Dr Khir seharusnya dihalang dari segi moral untuk memberi pandangan terutama dalam hal tatacara mentadbir negeri ini.

Oleh itu, Kerajaan Negeri menggesa agar mendeklasifikasikan dokumen perjanjian air dan segala laporan audit yang berkaitan agar rakyat tahu perkara yang sebenar. Kerajaan Persekutuan harus melihat perkara ini dengan serius apabila membincangkannya di dalam mesyuarat kabinet Rabu ini.

Kerajaan Negeri juga langsung tidak gentar dengan ugutan saman mahkamah RM1 billion yang dilakukan oleh Syabas walaupun mereka mendapat sokongan Kerajaan Pusat.

Sebaliknya, Kerajaan Negeri sentiasa membuka pilihan untuk mengambil tindakan mahkamah ke atas Syabas di atas kegagalannya memenuhi perjanjian konsesi dengan penuh tanggungjawab yang telah mengakibatkan kerugian tidak kurang dari RM8 Billion.

Kerajaan Negeri akan terus mengambil langkah-langkah wajar untuk memberi kefahaman kepada rakyat Selangor bagaimana kerajaan terdahulu telah menganiaya rakyat melalui pemberian konsesi kepada syarikat kroni ini.

Kita yakin rakyat Selangor menyokong penuh usaha Kerjaan Negeri mempertahankan hak air ini dan sentiasa mendoakan kejayaan kita.

FAEKAH BINTI HUSIN
SETIAUSAHA POLITIK KEPADA MENTERI BESAR SELANGOR

From  Bloomberg
By Ranjeetha Pakiam

Lawyers for Malaysian Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim asked for the sodomy charges against him to be dropped following accusations last week that a member of the prosecution team had an affair with the main witness in the case.

“The integrity of the entire prosecution is compromised,” Defense lawyer Karpal Singh told judge Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah. Singh said that as a result of the alleged affair, Saiful would have had access or been aware of papers from the investigation and he called for the entire team to resign.

Junior deputy public prosecutor Farah Azlina Latif was dropped from the team after allegations that she was romantically linked to Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, Anwar’s accuser, surfaced on a news website, the New Straits Times reported on July 28, citing Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail.

A letter dated July 26 to Solicitor-General II Mohd Yusof Zainal Abiden asking him to deny or confirm the allegations is still unanswered, said Anwar’s lawyer Sankara Nair. (more…)

From Malaysia Today

The prosecution and defence teams are expected to lock horns over the star witness when Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy trial resumes tomorrow.

The defence wants Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan to be recalled to the stand to answer the allegation of his sexual relationship with deputy public prosecutor Farah Azlina Latif.

FMT learnt that the defence team had written to Solicitor-General II Mohamed Yusof last week asking that Saiful be called in again. However, there has been no response. (more…)

Dari Harakah

PAS berharap polis menjaga keselamatan negara, bukan keselamatan Umno dan bertindaklah secara profesional dengan memberikan keutamaan kepada apa yang patut dilakukan untuk kepentingan rakyat dan negara, bukan untuk kepentingan Umno BN.

Sehubungan itu, Ketua Penerangan PAS Pusat, Idris Ahmad menegaskan pihaknya membantah sikap primitif dan tidak bertamadun polis yang bertindak kasar terhadap ceramah dan himpunan aman yang dilakukan oleh Pakatan Rakyat di negara ini. (more…)

A year ago the forces for democratic change in Asia were saddened by the death of one of the continent’s true heroines.

Corazon Aquino who in one brief, shining moment in her country’s long struggle for democratic restoration, resurrected the torch of Filipino freedom in 1986 that her late and fallen husband had held so courageously aloft, succumbed to a long battle with illness.
Those who live in the thrall of despotic regimes, particularly in Southeast Asia, and those newly freed from its clutches, remember with poignant gratitude the service this Philippine heroine rendered the cause of democracy to nation and continent.

The example of her struggle will find an indelible page in the history of peoples who struggle and thirst for freedom.

It is said it is not always granted to the sower to live to see the harvest.
Had she been alive Cory Aquino would have been immensely proud to see the torch of democratic restoration passed this year to her son, Noynoy Aquino, who as the newly elected President of the Philippines is entrusted with the task of further vivifying the country’s imperishable Rizalean heritage.

The Philippines has not been a lucky nation, having long suffered from the capricious lash of nature.

But the country has been endowed with fortuity in that leaders has arisen at critical junctures in its history to revive and vivify the precious legacy of freedom the country’s progenitor, Jose Rizal, gifted both nation and continent.

In the historical delineation of that legacy, Corazon Aquino will ever command a luminous chapter.

Her passing a year ago today is a poignant remembrance to the forces of democratic restoration in Malaysia to whom she rendered invaluable moral support.

Anwar Ibrahim
Opposition Leader
Parliament, Malaysia

Speech by Anwar Ibrahim, Head of the Opposition, Malaysian Parliament at the 15th Malaysian Law Conference 2010, Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, 31 July 2010

First, I’d like to thank the organizing committee for inviting me to close the conference. Perhaps that is an understatement. Really, I should say that words can’t convey my profound appreciation for the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ that your organization has to suffer by inviting me here. But then again, I see it as a mark of conviction and fortitude that you have stood your ground in the face of adversity. Therefore, I mean it in the truest sense when I say that I am greatly honored to be here to give my humble address to such a distinguished audience.

Today I shall depart from the usual practice of poking fun at lawyers. So let me take issue with Justice Oliver Holmes when he said that lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke. This remark is totally uncalled for. Speaking from personal experience, I have seen the toil and the tears that some lawyers have to go through in handling certain cases. I tell myself there must be some kind of masochistic tendency in them that they can carry on in spite of so much pain. And then on closer reflection, it has to do with the nobility of the profession and certain values in life. Of course, in any basket there are always some bad apples but as they say that shouldn’t spoil the whole bunch.

Indeed, I am fortunate to be able to count among my close friends, lawyers of the highest integrity and dedication to their calling. Which is why I stand here before you in humility to speak on a subject that I believe is close to all of us.

So, with apologies to the eminent legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin, I have chosen to title my speech today as “Taking Justice Seriously”.
As one saying goes, the principle of justice is so central in a civil society that without it the concept of law has no meaning. The Holy Qur’an enjoins us to “judge with justice.” According to St. Augustine, kingdoms are but great robberies if justice is taken away. In my own humble view, no civilized society can exist without it, for justice is so central that bereft of it, the very foundation of our humanity crumbles.

To be sure, in talking about justice, we are not confined to the judges and the judicial system of a country though that is a crucial component. Nor are we limited to discussing only the role of lawyers or the law enforcement agencies, though that too is essential. And justice is not only about subjecting the actions and policies of the Executive to intense scrutiny. That too is of utmost importance.

Indeed the subject encompasses all that have come to be associated with the idea of justice: freedom and democracy, the rule of law, constitutionalism, equity and fair play, social justice and the dignity of man. Let me begin with a historical account that is still relevant to the very idea of justice. (more…)