SOMEONE is lying. It is simple as that.

It is either the Ministry of Finance (MoF) has been telling tall tales about the IWH-CREC consortium’s inability to make its periodic payments for the Bandar Malaysia project, repeated lapses that made it necessary for the government to pull the plug on the deal.

Or that businessman Lim Kang Hoo and his partners in the consortium are guilty of shading the truth. Yesterday, IWH-CREC issued a statement that essentially challenged the narrative of the Najib administration.

It said that it had fulfilled all payment obligations under the terms of the share sale agreement that was inked on Dec 31, 2015. It disagreed with the position of the MoF that the agreement had lapsed and said that it reserves “all rights in this matter.”

Reserves all rights in this matter is lawyer-speak that the consortium reserves the right to sue for breach of contract.

In essence, Kang Hoo and his partners – which includes the state government of Johor – are telling the whole world that Putrajaya’s narrative is wrong. They are telling Malaysians that the government’s version of events is not to be believed.

Government sources have told The Malaysian Insight that the IWH-CREC agreement had to be terminated because they had missed payment milestones on more than 10 occasions.

Putrajaya believed that the consortium did not have the financial muscle to speedily develop Bandar Malaysia, which is meant to house a transportation hub as well as iconic buildings.

It is clear as day that someone is fibbing. It is about time the main actors who have been handling negotiations and the plan to develop Bandar Malaysia come clean on why the contract with IWH-CREC had to be terminated.

Why was the consortium given so many extensions? ‎Can Finance Minister Najib Razak or Finance Minister II Johari Ghani explain the yawning gap between the government’s narrative on the termination and the consortium’s insistence that it met all its payment obligations?

Can Treasury secretary-general Irwan Serigar explain why it took so long for him and his officials to raise the red flag on ‎these serious and continuous breaches by the IWH-CREC?

And here’s a question for Kang Hoo and friends: how about showing proof that the consortium made the payments? Don’t talk about the spirit of the share sale agreement.

Malaysians deserve the complete story. – The Malaysian Insight pic, May 6, 2017.