Loan to Jakarta: WP wants answers to 2 questions

THE Workers' Party wants the government to answer two questions on Singapore's US$5-billion (S$8.05-billion) loan to Indonesia.

In a press statement yesterday, it asked the government to answer the questions simply with a yes or no "without descending into being offensive".

The questions: Would the government agree that the loan was a matter of supreme public importance?

Was it not the judiciary's responsibility and power under the constitution to interpret the laws of the country?

This is the latest in an exchange between the opposition party and the government regarding the loan.

The statement, signed by WP chief and Non-Constituency MP J. B. Jeyaretnam, added: "If the answer to the second question is 'no', does the government say that it is for the executive to interpret the laws, as the executive thinks fit?

"The attorney general is a member of the executive."

It noted that people could draw their own conclusions on the government's reluctance to ask the judiciary to say if it had acted within the law.

"To the Workers' Party, it is plain," the statement said.

Mr Jeyaretnam challenged the propriety of the loan during the last parliamentary sitting.

He had said that according to the constitution, parliamentary and presidential approval had to be sought before the loan was offered.

But the Finance Ministry dismissed his interpretation, and argued that the loan was above board.

Attorney general Chan Sek Keong had also suggested that Mr Jeyaretnam bring the matter to the constitutional court if he felt that the government had acted beyond its authority.

This prompted Mr Jeyaretnam to say on Friday that he would do so only if the party did not have to pay a single cent for its effort.

He also estimated that the court action would cost between $20,000 and $30,000.

On Saturday, the Law Ministry dismissed as ludicrous the suggestion that the government should bear the cost of referring the matter to the constitutional court, when it had no reason to refer it to the courts to begin with.

In the latest statement, the party criticised the government's thinking that it was "absurd to spend $30,000 of the people's monies to satisfy the people that it has acted within the law in giving away $8 billion of the people's monies."

Published in the Straits Times. December 9, 1997