KOTA KINABALU: Sabah STAR, a key component partner of the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) coalition government, is standing firmly with Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor amid calls for his resignation following the alleged mineral licensing bribery scandal, says Datuk Seri Dr Jeffrey Kitingan.
The Sabah STAR president who is also Deputy Chief Minister I said his party remained firmly with GRS despite the scandal implicating eight of the coalition’s assemblymen.
He was asked about Umno Youth treasurer Naim Moktar’s call to Hajiji to step aside as Chief Minister and for Kitingan to lead the interim state government.
Naim, who is also Kinabatangan Umno Youth chief, had made the resignation call, saying that the bribery scandal involving the alleged issuance of mining prospecting licences had badly hurt Sabah’s image.
He said the GRS state government was facing a crisis of integrity, reputation and credibility after secretly filmed videos of a businessman allegedly talking about monies paid were uploaded online.
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission is investigating the videos and have recorded the statements of the assemblymen, including three state ministers.
Opposition Parti Warisan information chief Datuk Azis Jamman said GRS leaders should not play victim but answer the “real questions” of whether prospecting licences for minerals were used to “trade” for the support of assemblymen.
“The question about withdrawing the prospecting licences by the Chief Minister is not the main issue of the videos. The main issue is whether it is true or not that a certain amount of money was received by the leaders from issuing prospecting licences as a reward after giving their support to the Chief Minister,” he said in a statement yesterday.
Azis said none of the leaders had taken any step to sue the whistleblower over the videos, which GRS continuously claimed was edited to put the coalition in a bad light.
He added that GRS should stop blaming the Opposition for the videos because they were uploaded by the businessman and involved GRS assemblymen.
“This issue raises questions about the integrity of the GRS government,” he said.
