KOTA KINABALU: Karambunai LDP chief Loretto S Padua Jr claimed that the party’s organizing secretary Peter Chong Su Leong was the one who was telling ‘half truth’ about what had transpired during their meeting with the Registrar of Societies (ROS).
“I had expected Peter to bring up this issue of me telling half-truths in my earlier statement by hoping he will tell the whole truth. However my expectations were totally wrong as he was not even telling the truth,” he said in a statement yesterday.
Loretto, who was rebutting Peter’s earlier statement, pointed out that the meeting with ROS on October 14 last year was recorded not only by the ROS but also by all parties.
He added that the purpose of the meeting was to sit down and try to look for solutions or common similarities rather than the differences.
In his version of what had transpired during the meeting, Loretto said that there was an early proposal made by Datuk VK Liew requesting for a postponement on the party congress and election which had been fixed on the 19 and 20 October 2013 to make way for the ‘cleaning up’ process of the delegates list.
“However, it was objected by them. Datuk Teo had counter-proposed by requesting for all the sacked supreme councils to be reinstated in order for a supreme council meeting to be called within a day to discuss on this matter and to pass a resolution to postpone the party congress and election.
“Datuk Liew had therefore requested for a 15-minute break in order for him to discuss this matter with Datuk Pang Yuk Ming, Charles O Pang and the other supreme council members before he could decide on whether to agree on their proposal or not.
“During the break, we had discussed further that there was no reason for Datuk Liew to agree to reinstate the supreme council’s post as his action in removing them before this is valid and according to the Party Constitution. All of us had agreed to reject Datuk Teo’s proposal and Datuk Liew would announce his stand to the parties after the break.
“When the meeting continued, even before Datuk Liew announced his stand, we were caught by surprise when the RoS asked Datuk Liew to sign a piece of agreement drafted by them stating among others that Datuk Liew had agreed to reinstate the sacked supreme councils to their respective post in the party,” Loretto claimed.
“This was challenged by Datuk Liew by saying that he has yet to give his decision on the matter and nothing has been agreed yet. Therefore he refused to sign the agreement,” he said.
According to him, since the deal had collapsed, the ROS still tried to arrange something that could be agreed to by both parties. That was how the second agreement came up, in which the RoS had drafted the agreement after ensuring that both parties had agreed on the terms and conditions.
“However, we were informed that at the very last minute after making a phone call, Datuk Teo did not agree to sign it. That happened after Datuk Liew signed the agreement and left the RoS office. We only knew about Datuk Teo’s refusal from the newspaper the next day.
“I hope, with this explanation, it could clear the air on what actually happened during the meeting with the ROS,” Loretto stressed.
Chong recently issued a statement saying it was very unbecoming of Loretto, being a lawyer, to just reveal the half-truth in relation to what transpired in the meeting between the two factions in the presence of the Director General of RoS at their Putrajaya office last year.
“When he (Loretto) said that Datuk Teo Chee Kang refused to sign the mediation agreement at the end of the meeting, he conveniently chose to leave out the fact that there was an earlier draft agreement prepared on the advice of the ROS which, among others, recognizes the status quo of the Supreme Council prior to all purported terminations and suspensions by Liew, which Liew refused to sign,” he said.
From the outset, Chong said, Liew’s faction had all along placed their reliance on the records of the ROS, which at that time still showed that Liew was the Party president.
However, when the ROS decided not in their favour, they (Liew’s faction) said that the RoS had no authority to make decisions.
“It is ironical that Datuk Liew Vui Keong is now asking for election by a democratic process, but he was the one who abused his power to purportedly sack and suspend everyone whom he deemed as a threat to stop them from contesting in the party elections,” Chong concluded.