Hishammuddin should ensure that report on inquiry into million-ringgit South Pole paracute jump  fiasco and scandal is made public without delay to avoid parliamentary censure next month 
Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang 

(Penang, Sunday): Youth and Sports Minister, Datuk Hishammuddin Tun Hussein should ensure that the report on investigations into the million-ringgit South Pole parachute jump fiasco and scandal is made public without delay so as to avoid parliamentary censure next month.
 
With further revelations in today’s Sunday Star that the South Pole Millennium Jump 2000 organisers had known by December 12, 1999 that the parachute jump over the Geographical South Pole had been called off by the Russians, the whole South Pole expedition is becoming murkier and murkier and even taking on the character of a national scam to exploit the mindless "Malaysia Boleh" frenzy and mania.

If it is true that there are email correspondence as early as December 12, 1999 to show that the Russians had called off the jump over the Geographical South Pole, then the whole expedition to South Pole by the Malaysian Millennium Jump 2000 was a charade.

It also raises the question as to the role and responsibility of the Ministry of Youth and Sports in this charade and scam, not only for the RM780,000 allocation for the expedition, but as a co-organiser of the expedition.

It is indeed most shocking if it is true that Fikiran Syndicate Millennium Jump 2000  organising chairman G. Siva Kumar had in a letter dated Janaury 16, 2000  asked  the American co-ordination for the expedition for a refund of  US$10,000 per team member because "the trip to the geographical South Pole has been called off", and yet in another letter dated Jan 17 to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Siva Kumar reported that the team had successfully made a jump over the South Pole on Jan 13, and invited Dr Mahathir to receive the team upon their arrival home at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

It was most fortunate that Mahathir was holidaying  in the Caribbean at the time  or the South Pole parachute jump fiasco would have become an even bigger scandal compromising the office of the Prime Minister.

(30/1/2000)

*Lim Kit Siang - DAP National Chairman