Corruption blitz a mere hoodwink

I am amazed at the turn that the Perwaja Steel scandal has taken as I was the one responsible in tabling the Pricewaterhouse preliminary report in Parliament in December 1996 which, in prima facie, incriminated Eric Chia.

Incidently this was the beginning of Dr Mahathir Mohamad's enmity towards me.

It is incredible that all that the attorney-general could come out with is the phantom company in Hong Kong and RM76 million. These details were already spelt out in the said report and thus clearly in public domain.

Subsequently the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) investigated Perwaja and by late 1997 had established that there was sufficient evidence to charge Chia.

After seven years of seemingly laborious efforts involving vast expense of public funds - including several overseas travels to Hong Kong, Japan and Switzerland, and raising public expectations - the government comes out with a charge which is totally disproportionate to the actual culpability already established through the ACA investigations.

This leaves us with the conclusion that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is trying to pull wool over the people's eyes and deflect the insistent public demand for positive action to be taken against the rampant corruption among the country's business and political clique that is bleeding the country of its wealth and resources.

Illegal transactions

With reference to Perwaja, conservative estimation by independent observers have revealed the amount at the time to be around hundreds of million ringgit, which have been corruptly siphoned off.

Furthermore, Perwaja's liability to the nation is now estimated to be between RM11 and 13 billion.

In 1998, while I was still deputy prime minister and finance minister, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) submitted a final report on Perwaja, inter alia, the report conclusively uncovered a host of illegal and fraudulent transactions involving the management of Perwaja including the procurement of iron-ore from Argentina freight chargers, contracts, etc.

The PWC findings uncovered among others, two approvals signed by Mahathir. The said report further emphasised that the approvals were given in clear contravention of financial procedures, without due tender process, or even the approval of Perwaja directors.

The report also questioned the exorbitant payment of legal fees to VK Lingam and Co. Many of these shady transactions were done without reference to the treasury department. This is in clear contravention of financial procedures, rules and practices.

The ACA was notified of the report and the Treasury insisted in an investigation. For obvious reasons, nothing happened.

Subsequently in 1999, I lodged a police report highlighting the salient points mentioned in the PWC report to enable and facilitate the police and the ACA to investigate this scandal.

If all the powers-that-be can come out with is these acts of tokenism, it would be wishful thinking on the part of the rakyat to expect action against corrupt leaders for their corrupt practices involving the issuance of shares and licences, awarding of contracts and military procurement.