DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng has ordered his lawyers to file a defamation suit against MCA vice-president Tan Teik Cheng and his party-owned media company, The Star, alleging the two had spread lies about him on the Johor campaign trail.

Lim said both had made false claims about funds allocated to a Chinese school in Johor when Lim was the Pakatan Harapan finance minister.

“I have instructed my lawyers to file a defamation suit against MCA-owned The Star and MCA vice-president Tan Teik Cheng for their lies against me on SJKC Kuek Ho Yao intended to cause DAP to lose seats, especially the Yong Peng state seat, in the Johor state elections,” he said in a statement.

He said The Star had published Tan’s statement in an online report on March 7, quoting the MAC leader as saying: “During the Johor state election, he (Guan Eng) dared to claim that he had allocated RM4mil to SJKC Kuek Ho Yao. However, he still did not dare deny that the condition for allocating that sum was to change the name of the school”.

Lim said the statement was untrue. 

“The RM4 million was handed over even though construction had not yet begun. As finance minister, I had never set the condition that SJKC Kuek Ho Yao must change its name to receive my allocation of RM4 million. The Star should pay the price for being a purveyor of fake news for its owner MCA,” Lim said. 

Lim said Tan repeated his lie yesterday on Facebook. 

“In his Facebook post yesterday, Tan asked why I had not taken any action when he had posed the same question 8 days earlier on 28th February in the Chinese papers. Tan clearly wants me to take action against Chinese newspapers in addition to the defamation action against the MCA-owned The Star,” he said. 

Lim said during his 22 months as finance minister, he had allocated RM43 million for new construction purposes to 26 Chinese primary schools. 

He said MCA could never have achieved while it was in charge. 

Lim said such allocations were made unconditionally by the Finance Ministry at the request of the deputy education minister Teo Nie Cheng.

“MCA has been spreading lies in their desperation to regain seats that they had lost in the 2018 general election, particularly Yong Peng. I have no choice but to sue in court when these lies are repeatedly serially and slowly believed by the public because no defamation suit was filed,” he said. 

Lim said he also intended to file defamation suits over rumours that he had imposed new corporate or income taxes, such as the new tax on profits earned overseas by Malaysian companies that are returned to the country. 

“I have also asked my lawyers to study the possibility of filing additional defamation suits against those who lied that I had introduced such new taxes when the opposite is true - the corporate tax for SMEs was reduced by 1% to 17% and the taxable income threshold for the 17% was increased by RM100,000 from RM500,000 to RM600,000,” he said. 

Lim said the new tax was introduced in Budget 2022 and would heavily impact Malaysian companies operating in Singapore and lead to the imposition of tax on income earned by 400,000 Malaysian workers in Singapore.

“The government had said that the tax on income brought back by Malaysian workers will not be taxed for the time being. However, as there cannot be one country, two systems, such income by Malaysian workers earned in Singapore will be imposed after the 15th general election.” – March 9, 2022.