COMMENT | My wife, Betty Chew, a lawyer, wondered aloud how MCA deputy president Wee Ka Siong can spin an RM6.3 billion public infrastructure project consisting of three highways and an undersea tunnel (the project) to suddenly cost RM20 billion.

As a lawyer, she stated that once you sign an agreement for the contracted price of RM6.3 billion, there is no way you can legally compel the state government to instead pay RM20.54 billion.

This is simple logic for anyone but Wee Ka Siong. Wee is lying again but this time he is making an RM20.54 billion lie to hide his cowardly failure to name which Penang state government leader had corruptly accepted millions of ringgit for this project.

His refusal contrasts with Pakatan Harapan leaders boldly naming the corrupt leader behind the 1MDB financial scandal that has turned Malaysia into a global kleptocracy. If Harapan dares to do so, why is Wee scared to do so? Or is Wee afraid of being sued because he knows he is lying and has no proof?

Wee lies like breathing air. He continues to recycle his lie that this project was improperly granted without fulfilling the minimum paid-up capital requirement of RM381 million. Wee did not mention names, but Wee is clearly making a baseless and unfair attack on the integrity of the Penang state secretary Farizan Darus, who heads the Penang Tender Committee that awarded the open tender to Zenith Consortium.

Even the MACC, which has unjustly hounded the Penang state government over this non-existent scandal, does not question the fact that the minimum capital requirement of RM381 million was fulfilled by Zenith Consortium. Wee has failed to show proof that the RM381 million minimum paid-up capital requirement was not met, just as he failed to show proof which state government leader accepted corruption money.

I know that Wee is under pressure from Umno forcing MCA to surrender the Bandar Tun Razak parliamentary seat and unable to force Alor Gajah BN to accept the prime minister’s chosen candidate and political secretary Wong Nai Chee to replace the incumbent Koh Nai Kwong...