Millions of Malaysians waited eagerly to listen to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahamd Badawi talk on TV3 on Monday night in a taped interview with Bernama chairman Annuar Zaini

Many were expecting him to give knockout blows to Dr Mahathir Mohamad's four questions involving the crooked bridge, the MV Agusta deal, the AP scandal and why the former Proton top gun's (Tengku Mahaleel Ariff) contract was not renewed.

But the interview was a total disappointment. Firstly, Abdullah did not even touch on any of the four questions raised by Dr M. Instead he said some astonishing things.

He said that both his son and his son-in-law have not had any benefits from the government in the award of projects.

Everyone knows that Scomi - which is controlled by his son Kamaluddin - has won many contracts that were clearly the result of Abdullah's position. These contracts are all government- linked.

For example, the recent savings from reducing of the oil subsidy was used to buy more public transport buses for use in Kuala Lumpur. Scomi won the RM120 million contract to supply those buses. Later, Scomi also won a RM60 million contract to supply train coaches to KTM Berhad. Scomi then won the contract to transport coal for Tenaga Nasional Bhd.

Abdullah says 80 percent of Scomi's business is from overseas. But he forgot to mention that all that business is from following Petronas around the world.

He also said that Khairy did not receive any 'kelebihan' or advantages as his son-in-law. This is not true, everyone know that. ECM Libra, a private investment firm in which Khairy has interests, bought Avenue Capital Bhd, a government-owned company for a planned merger to create one of the nation's largest investment bank.

That deal could only have been approved by the finance minister whom we all know is Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.