Tony Pua gets overwhelming public support against Syabas

PETALING JAYA, July 17 — The “RM1 for Water Rights: 100,000 Malaysians Support Tony Pua vs Syabas” online campaign in support of DAP federal lawmaker Tony Pua has announced that they have managed to collect more than RM150,000 from their online campaign.

A donation box making the rounds at dinner tonight.

“By the end of the online campaign, we have managed to collect RM150,939,” said the campaign’s organiser, Yeo Bee Yin tonight.

When he took to the stage, Pua stated the overall total collected by the campaign, inclusive of the dinner and the rounds done by DAP volunteers with donation boxes.

“And so, I would like to announce the total amounts of the campaign. As announced earlier by Bee Yin, we managed to collect RM151,000. The dinner has managed to collect RM173,000. And the donation has managed to collect RM22,400. This is an overall total of RM310,000,” he announced.

The amount collected is RM110,000 more than the sum Pua has been ordered to pay in damages to Syabas.

Lim Kit Siang addresses attendees of the dinner.

The excess has been pledged by Pua to the DAP General Election Fund.

Last month, Syabas won a defamation suit against the DAP national publicity secretary, who was ordered by the Kuala Lumpur High Court to pay RM200,000 in damages besides costs and interests.

The opposition party had started an online campaign to raise RM100,000 to help the federal lawmaker pay the amount by July 16, but the financial support from the public was beyond expectation, organisers have said.

The cause to aid the MP had instead managed to collect RM143,256 by July 16 from tens of thousands of Malaysians in a one-week period.