The AP Affair

The AP issue seems to stir up more dust than it was originally intended. It all started as a lame excuse of the Chairman of EON Mahali for the poor performance of the group during an interview with a local Chinese magazine.He claimed that the poor showing was due to the unfair competations coming from imported vehicles from South Korea,bacause the import tax imposed on these vehicles were unreasonably low,blah blah blah...Then Datuk Rafidah,the Minister of International Trade and Industry jumped to the defence of her ministry's practice,the way it was issuing the Approved Permits(AP).To that up came our esteemed ex PM Tun Mahatir who is now the Adivisor to EON,giving support to Mahali's words. This stirred the current PM,Datuk Abd Badawi who ordered Rafidah to explain the whole thing to Tun Mahatir and put a stop to all these immediately.But the exchange of words goes on,with the UMNO youth and the Parliament back-benchers jumping onto the band wagon. Finally the Anti Corruption Agency(ACA) also wants a piece of the action,oh boy!!! By the way,the naming of AP is puzzling me.Approved Permit......isn't a permit by default alreafy approved? Is there such a thing as Unapproved Permit? I thought AP refers to Aotu Permit or Automobile Permit all this while!