ZTE Execs Slammed for ‘Arrogance’

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PUBLISHED ON February 18, 2008 AT 3:24 PM

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr.
(PDP-Laban) today said the refusal of China’s ZTE
Corp. to present its side in the $329 million national
broadband contract is not contributing to the
resolution of the controversy.

Pimentel said the ZTE’s continued disregard for the
summons issued by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee
only tends to fuel the claims that the deal is
overpriced and disadvantageous to the government.

He has urged ZTE chairman Fu Yong and Chinese embassy
commercial attaché Fan Yang to testify at the joint
hearings of the Senate Blue Ribbon, Defense and Trade
and Commerce Committees on the telecoms scandal.

But instead of responding positively to Pimentel’s
call, the ZTE management declared that it “will not
allow itself to be dragged into any political circus.”

“ZTE calling the Blue Ribbon Committee hearings a
political circus is hubristic. ZTE acts as if were a
superpower crushing weak nations in a hegemonic
drive,” Pimentel said.

“We won’t let ZTE arrogance petrify us, Fu and Fan
must appear.”

He said Fu and Fan must not squander an opportunity to
clear things and resolve the controversy in the light
of key witness Rodolfo Lozada’s revelations that the
ZTE-NBN contract was grossly overpriced and that part
of the contract price was an alleged $130 million
commission of former Commission on Elections Chairman
Benjamin Abalos of which about $1 million had
allegedly been paid in advance.
-o0o-

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