It is up to the cabinet to decide on the declassification of the cabinet minutes related to the Metramac scandal, said Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak today.

"Anything related to the cabinet, only the cabinet can decide," he told a press conference in Putrajaya.

He was responding to the call made by former finance minister Daim Zainuddin (photo, left), who was among those implicated in the scandal, on the cabinet to make public all the minutes relating to the matter.

In an 18-page statement yesterday, Daim denied that business tycoon, Halim Saad, who was accused of siphoning RM32.5 million with his ex-partner Anuar Othman from toll concessionaire Metramac Corporation Sdn Bhd, had enjoyed his patronage.

Halim (photo, right) had also denied the charge, which surfaced in a recent Court of Appeal judgment in the case of Fawziah Holdings versus Metramac.

Declassify all

Meanwhile, parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang said Daim should have advocated a transparency policy on privatisation during his tenure as finance minister which ended in 1991 to protect public interest instead of asking for the declassification now to clear his own name.

The veteran politician, in a statement today, also raised two questions on the issue:

  1. The rationale or justification for the Treasury payment of RM32.5 million as compensation for the Metramac takeover of the Jalan Cheras toll from Syarikat Teratai KG Sdn Bhd (STKG) to Halim through Metro Juara.

  2. The rational or justification for the Treasury payment to Metramac, totalling RM756.7 million for compensation and subsidies, for taking over the Cheras toll concession from STKG.

Lim also questioned the statement by Daim that he was no longer finance minister when the second concession agreement was signed between Metramac and Kuala Lumpur City Council on Feb 13, 1992.

"The question is whether the terms of the second concession agreement was already agreed when he was still finance minister?" he asked.

Apart from the cabinet minutes on the Metramac issue, the opposition leader also called on Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to declassify all documents on privatisation contracts going back as far as the North-South expressway and Halim's United Engineers Malaysia (UEM) in the mid-80s.