Prove it or I will sue, Guan Eng tells Muhyiddin

PETALING JAYA: Lim Guan Eng has threatened to sue Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin if he fails to prove that the former had revoked the tax exemptions of Yayasan Al-Bukhary during his tenure as finance minister.

The DAP chairman and Bagan MP said that he would give Muhyiddin until Wednesday (March 15) to apologise, failing which he would initiate legal actions against the former prime minister and Perikatan Nasional chairman.

"Muhyiddin must apologise and retract the slander which he has accused me of outside the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on March 9 that I had revoked the tax exemptions against Yayasan Al-Bukhary as the finance minister.

"When I was the finance minister, I have never issued any specific order to revoke the tax exemptions against Yayasan Al-Bukhary which was already approved by the Barisan Nasional government earlier.

"The slander by Muhyiddin is with bad intentions to play up sentiments to distract the people from the four abuse of power and two money laundering charges being faced by him.

"It is easy to instigate the people with accusations that I purposely revoked tax exemptions against an Islamic charity organisation.

"I have challenged him to show the letter that I have issued the order as the finance minister then but I am sure he will not be able to as there is no such letter," said Lim.

Earlier on Saturday (March 11), Muhyiddin said that Lim was responsible as the finance minister in 2018 for the decision to reapply taxation and another 45% penalty tax on Yayasan Al-Bukhary, which had earlier received an exemption for Islamic charity deeds.

The Pagoh MP said that the recent statement by Lim with regards to the tax exemption on Yayasan Al-Bukhary does not respond exactly to what he had stated on March 9.

Muhyiddin stated that Yayasan Al-Bukhary had appealed to him as the eighth Prime Minister to be exempted from taxes for works related to Islamic charities.

On March 10, Muhyiddin was charged with four counts of abuse of power for using his position as the then PM with his party allegedly obtaining gratification of RM232.5mil in bribes from corporate entities.

He also faces two more charges of money laundering, wherein his party received RM195mil out of the total sum from illegal activities.

According to the charges, the money was deposited into Bersatu’s bank accounts in bribes from three companies and an individual.

The companies are Bukhary Equity Sdn Bhd, Nepturis Sdn Bhd, and Mamfor Sdn Bhd, while the individual is one Datuk Azman Yusoff.

For the remaining two charges, he was charged with receiving proceeds from illegal activities amounting to RM195mil out of the RM232.5mil from Bukhary Equity.