Responding to Musa’s statement at the state legislative assembly session here today, Chan said the argument did not hold water.
“The offer by Petronas to Sabah was made three years ago and first announced to the public during the state legislative assembly sitting in July 2014,” Chan told FMT.
“Did PPTEP consider to acquire the share before or after Petronas’ offer to Sabah? I think it was after.
“So what’s the reason we can’t finalise the terms and conditions?”
Chan further said all the media reports covered the story of the chief minister announcing Petronas’ agreement was to “give” Sabah a 10% stake in PL9SB.
“(Prime minister) Najib had repeated a similar announcement at the end of 2014 as well. ‘Give’ means what? In Malay, (it means) ‘beri’. But now we Sabah need to acquire it, it’s ‘beli’. How come ‘beri’ changed to ‘beli’ (buy)?
“The chief minister would not disclose the truth that Sabah is yet to have the promised share in PL9SB until I discovered it and disclosed it to the public.
“Does it mean that he would have kept silent on this issue if nobody does a check-and-balance on his administration?”
Musa said the negotiations had just resumed recently following the completion of the transaction between PTTEP and Petronas.
“It should be noted that the state (Sabah) government must negotiate for the best possible terms for the state and this includes the price,” he said in his response to Sri Tanjong’s assemblyman Chan’s question during the session.
Musa said the opposition need not worry because the state government would negotiate the best possible outcome for the deal.
Chan also questioned Musa’s leadership as chief of the government during the assembly.
“Why should he get angry and label me with all kinds of negative words in the sitting? Somehow, it shows his leadership quality,” said Chan.
“Musa put the blame on my ‘poor command’ of the Malay language….
“He is insulting our national education standard as I scored an A in my Bahasa subject in SPM (in) 1996, and I graduated from Universiti Malaya in 2001 where a lot of courses were in the national language.”
During the sitting, Musa had said: “The YB from Sri Tanjong should also learn to speak Bahasa (Malaysia) properly and not play around with words to suit his agenda.”