THE Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4 Centre) has raised red flags on the status of DAP’s MP aspirant for the Puchong parliamentary seat Yeo Bee Yin who is known to be the spouse of IOI Properties Group Bhd CEO Lee Yeow Seng (son of IOI Group Bhd’s  founder, the late Tan Sri Lee Shin Cheng).

Notwithstanding the propriety of an active politician being married to a powerful businessman and the telling ways in which the business-political nexus manifests, C4 Centre is wary that Yeo’s nomination for a constituency in an area where her in-laws possess vast business interests smacks of potential conflict of interest concerns.

“As someone with a personal stake in the success of the IOI Group’s operations, Yeo’s impartiality and ability to make decisions prioritising her constituency and the lives of its residents is cast in doubt, regardless of her numerous achievements as the former Energy, Science, Technology, Environment, and Climate Change (MESTECC) Minister,” the C4 Centre pointed out.

“In fact, the (IOI) Group has its hands in massive land areas across the Puchong constituency seeing as its main investment properties.”

They include the likes of Puchong Financial Corporate Centre; IOI Boulevard Puchong; Sheraton Puchong; Palm Garden Hotel; Palm Garden Golf Club; and the IOI Palm Villa Golf and Country Resort (within Klang Valley) and, elsewhere, IOI Malls (Puchong and Johor Baru).

“Its portfolios also include the IOI City Mall, Le Méridien and Marriott Hotel as well as One and Two IOI Square in Putrajaya,” contended the C4 Centre.

“Puchong’s current population comprises more than 400,000 residents. With the unabating number of developments there in Puchong and across the Klang Valley – a large number of which are commercial or luxury residential properties – there is growing dissatisfaction that these projects only serve the interests of property developers, have no utility for a majority of the population, raise costs of living in the surrounding areas, and contribute to environmental degradation.”

To re-cap, the late Shin Cheng who is Yeo’s late father-in-law had during his lifetime headed IOI Group Bhd (IOIGB) and IOI Properties, and led the corporations into becoming among Malaysia’s largest developers and plantation cultivators to date.

IOI Group has a total market capitalisation of RM25.58 bil as of October 2022 with IOIPGB’s total assets amounting to RM33.43 bil in 2021.

“Concomitantly, brothers Yeow Seng (Yeo’s husband) and Yeow Chor (Yeo’s brother-in-law) have a total combined real-time net worth of US$4.1 bil as of Nov 5, thus ranking themselves at number 638 on Forbes’ 2022 Real-Time Billionaires List,” noted the C4 Centre.

“That Yeo was nominated to run in the constituency of Puchong in the first place indicates a glaring blindspot of political parties who, at best, simply were not aware of Yeo’s connections to business (doubtful as that may be).”

At worst, the C4 Centre said such a connection could potentially become a leverage for the purposes of political funding “if we still fail to heed and learn from the lessons of the past”.

“In lieu of a functioning Political Funding Act or policy on asset declaration, political parties must remain vigilant in ensuring that the circumstances giving rise to the expansion of the business-political nexus are limited as much as possible, especially if those parties are campaigning on an anti-corruption and reformist agenda,” asserted the C4 Centre.

“The growing trend of business-in-politics and vice versa gives rise to nepotism, cronyism, patronage politics and undue influence of business on policy-making.”

The C4 Centre added: “These issues must be prevented by all means as they ultimately lead to the impoverishment of the rakyat. As Malaysia prepares for yet another historic general election, politicians and parties need to be reminded of Malaysia’s urgent need to curb corruption.” – Nov 6, 2022

https://focusmalaysia.my/daps-yeo-bee-yins-ge15-nomination-a-conflict-of-interest-of-major-proportions/