Former Malaysian Travel Bureau (MTB) chief executive officer Melia Majilis has claimed that she was 'victimised' upon discovering several alleged financial irregularities in the bureau.

According to her, the late MTB managing director Zainuddin Mohd Zain accused her of attempted fraud by having two conflicting audit reports concerning her travel agency, Melia Travels, prior to it being purchased by MTB.

The first audit report, dated Sept 18, 1997, did not state the RM1.08 million owed to Melia Travels by the American-based cultural NGO, Asian Pacific Development Centre.

Melia claimed that Zainuddin, whom the mother of eight accused of numerous misdeeds, used this an opportunity to oust her from MTB, which falls under the scandal-rocked Tourism Ministry subsidiary Pempena.

pempena tourism board melia controversy 130109 01Despite making amendments, Melia said she was slapped with a show-cause letter with Zainuddin claiming that MTB was unable to draw any conclusion from it.

Subsequently, Zainuddin ordered the termination of the agreement (right) between Melia Travels and MTB and also demanded that Melia resign as CEO and director of MTB to which she obliged.

"The mistake (two audit reports) was unintentional. We made the clarification by sending in the amended report and a letter to explain the situation but MTB under the control of Zainuddin did not pay heed to our explanation and asked me to resign," she said in an email to Malaysiakini.

Legal action

Melia later sought legal action to recover her RM2.5 million worth of shares in MTB and filed for a winding-up of the bureau.

The case was filed on June 12, 1998 at the High Court commercial division but was dismissed. The court argued that Melia had no locus standi to petition for a winding-up against MTB as she no longer had anything to do with the bureau after her resignation.

Furthermore, Zainuddin through his lawyer told the court that MTB should not be closed down since the bureau was expecting lucrative tourism turnover due to the Commonwealth Games held in Malaysia in 1998.

However, Pempena pulled the plug on MTB in the same year and renamed the bureau, Malaysian Travel Business Sdn Bhd, and maintained the same board of directors.

pempena tourism board melia controversy 130109 02With the closure, Melia lamented that her RM2.5 million worth of shares was also lost.

"Furthermore, no one knows what happened to the RM87 million (promised by then tourism minister Sabaruddin Chik) which was to be injected into MTB and also the tourism profit that was made from Sukom 98 (Commonwealth Games). I’d like to know what happened to all this money?" asked Melia.

Despite its closure, MTB continued with its legal pursuit against Melia to have her pay for bureau's legal fees in the wind-up application case which amounted to RM120,000.

MTB also wanted her to pay RM68,000 for the operation cost of the former MTB branch in Damansara which Melia headed although the expenses were already approved by MTB's board of directors.

Documents provided by Melia indicated that all expenses used to operate the MTB branch in Damansara was indeed approved by the bureau’s board of directors.

On June 2003, the court struck out MTB's application on the basis that the RM120,000 legal fees claim must first be taxed.

However, MTB persisted that Melia pay the bureau after her winding-up case was struck out by the civil court on the same month.

'Minutes recovered'

At the same time, construction and property development company, IGB Corporation Bhd, was seeking legal action against Melia over a property deal that went sour.

Melia had purchased a low-cost house in Ipoh Garden developed by IGB in 1980 for RM35,000 and paid RM13,000 in down payment for the property but decided not to continue with the purchase.

In March 2001, Melia was declared a bankrupt. At this point, she alleged that MTB saw the opportunity to use the bankruptcy case as a way to 'kill' her.

According to Melia, the Securities Commission (SSM) had managed to obtain the meeting minutes between Zainuddin and his lawyer where the two had allegedly discussed about using her bankruptcy case against her.

She said the SSM had confiscated the minutes and other documents in the wake of numerous allegations from various quarters against MTB.

Melia said that she learnt from sources that the minutes revealed that Zainuddin had wanted to keep her bankrupt so that MTB could be closed down.

Melia claimed that Zainuddin wanted MTB to cease operations so that any information regarding the missing funds, mismanagement and other financial irregularities remains unearthed.

A tale of 'victimisation' under Pempena (Part 1)

Part 3 will be published tomorrow

Editor's note: The third part of this series is being temporarily held back pending advice from Malaysiakini's lawyers.

Malaysiakini has received letters from lawyers for the Malaysia Travel Bureau Sdn Bhd and Pempena Sdn Bhd requesting it not to publish any articles on the matter pending legal proceedings between Melia Majilis and the MTB.

"Our clients deny the wholly unfounded allegations by Melia Majilis… our clients are not in a position to respond in detail to the allegations as there are pending legal proceedings," said their lawyers in their letters.