'missing' compensation from Japan
When you trusted the Government....
RM207 billion poser over 'missing' compensation from Japan
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Harakahdaily, |
22 October 2012 |
Oct 22: The BN government has been told to explain the
whereabouts of some RM207 billion paid by the government of Japan as
compensation to some 30,000 Malaysians once recruited as forced labour during
the Japanese occupation of Malaya.
According to Bukit Gantang member of parliament Mohamad Nizar Jamaludin, the
money had been delivered to the Malaysian government a decade ago but neither
the surviving victims nor their families had received any payment.
Nizar said that the sum had already been paid by Japan to Malaysia as early as
2004 because Bank Negara Malaysia had in that year issued a banker's cheque for
the sum of RM107 billion and another RM100 billion in the form of Maybank
shares, registered on December 13, 2004.
“30,000 Malayan citizens were involved in the construction of the
railway," Nizar said, referring to the 'Death Railway', a 400-kilometre
railway project by the Japanese occupation to connect Burma and Thailand.
Citing a letter sent by an association representing Death Railway victims and
their kins to prime minister Najib Razak dated July 27 last year, Nizar
revealed that the Prime Minister's Department had followed it up with the Human
Resouces ministry in August 2011.
Speaking at the parliament, Nizar also claimed that all parties including the
Attorney General had agreed that the money should be disbursed to the intended
recipients.
"If the matter was tabled and approved by the cabinet, why should the
money be kept by the Treasury for so long?" asked Nizar.
The former Perak Menteri Besar added that the father of Zulkefli Ahmad
Makinudin, the current Chief Judge of Malaya, was one of the recipients, being a former forced
labourer during the Japanese occupation of 1942-1945.
"He now lives in Ipoh and can relate the hardship
experienced by the 30,000 citizens," Nizar added.
Nizar reminded the BN government that by further delaying the release of the
money to the victims, it was betraying the people's trust, adding that the
governments of Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam, whose citizens were also part of
the Death Railway, had already distributed the compensation money to the
victims.
In : Public Justice