MI : I nearly gave up over cattle allegations, says Khalid

By Neville Spykerman

SHAH ALAM, March 5 — Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim today admitted he nearly threw in the towel and quit politics when he was accused of corruption. The allegations surfaced after 46 heads of cattle was donated for slaughter in his Bandar Tun Razak parliamentary constituency during Hari Raya Korban, in Dec 2008.

“The page one picture of me in the New Straits Times, when I was accused of corruption was the worse point in my life,” he said during a press conference to mark his two years as Selangor Mentri Besar.

On Jan 21, 2009 GERAK, a non-government organisation, lodged a report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) accusing Khalid of misusing funds from a state subsidiary to buy the cattle for RM110,400.

“I thought to myself that after all my years of service to my community, I didn’t deserve this,” said Khalid.

Khalid, who described the accusations against him as “very nasty,” disclosed today that his wife wanted him to withdraw a deposit (from the bank), throw it at the party, so he could be done with politics.

However Khalid said he knew he had done nothing wrong and decided against running away.

Khalid was only vindicated on Feb 12 this year, when the MACC cleared him of the graft allegation.

He said his second year in office was less traumatic, and most of his efforts were focussed on managing the economy because of the global downturn.

He pointed out that unlike the federal government, a state did not have resources to raise funds.

“My concern was what would happen if there was lots of unemployment and if businesses could not move.”

However he said the state managed to get the support of industries and state agencies to fund their economic activities.

“For the year ahead, I hope for the sake of Malaysia, we will be allowed to implement all our policies.” he concluded.