Consumer activists, Nordin Thani and Hashima Hasbullah Yahya, Deputy President and Secretary-General respectively of the Consumers Association of Sabah and Labuan (Cash), were stripped of their posts yesterday after a tit-for-tat police report was lodged against them.

In addition, they were also threatened with lawsuits if they persisted in washing dirty linen in public and tarnishing the image of the NGO or further humiliating the president in the media.

patrick sindu"I am forced to sack these two persons with regret as I am still the head of this organisation," said Cash President Patrick Sindu. "I have tried to contact them in vain via SMS to look for ways to resolve the problem. All Cash members in Sabah, after a meeting a few days ago, vehemently urged me to sack these two persons from the organisation."

He was speaking to the media after accompanying Joshua Kong, one of three Cash deputy presidents, to the Karamunsing police station in Kota Kinabalu to lodge a police report against both Thani and Hashima.

The gist of the complaint was a plea to the police to "stop both Thani and Hashima from subjecting Cash to a trial in the media". "I hope that they will give us a chance and stop going to the press to blow up the matter," wrote Kong in his police report.

Thani was sacked, according to Sindu, for not paying his membership fees to Cash for the past two years while Hashima, who has also not paid her membership fees since signing up in 2006, met a similar fate for discrediting the association (in the media), a charge which was not leveled at the former despite his public statements alleging abuse of funds and non-disclosure of grants from the federal government.

"I regret sacking these two officials because they were brought in by me," said Sindu. "I helped Thani when he had a problem with an Ah Long (loan shark) and Hashima was appointed as a graduate who could do something for the consumer movement.

"We had a meeting with the Sabah Commissioner of Police a few days ago and he advised the three of us to settle the problem among ourselves since this is an NGO matter. After the meeting, I was surprised to learn that the two of them had lodged police reports.

"Since they are no longer members, they should stop talking about Cash in the media. If they persist in doing so, we will be forced to take legal action against them although they have claimed that we are an illegal organisation.

"They should return all association documents with them. We are surprised that they could obtain copies of our bank accounts without a warrant or standing instruction from Bank Negara."

Internal probe to be conducted

Hashima, acting in her capacity as Secretary-General and a signatory, had obtained Cash's bank statements from Maybank in Karamunsing and Sadong Jaya, both in Kota Kinabalu. Both the savings accounts have reportedly been frozen, following the police reports by Thani and Hashima and contain RM25,000 and RM5,000 respectively.

Sindu disclosed that all allegations by Thani and Hashima will be probed by an internal investigation committee headed by Kong, a chartered accountant by training. These include the NGO's actual status on paper with the Registrar of Societies (ROS), funds and grants received and monies raised from the general public, unauthorised withdrawal of funds and improper use of funds or abuse.

Hashima had explained to the media that she was forced to lodge a police report last Monday along with Thani, to protect herself and other innocent Cash officials against charges of criminal breach of trust after learning from the president himself at a meeting on Jan 23 that "the association had no more funds in its accounts".

Hashima claims that she has a text message in her mobile from Sindu, specifically instructing her not to invite Thani to the meeting where "Sindu bad-mouthed the uninvited and absent deputy president".

One particular beef against Sindu is that unknown to other members, Cash received a RM50,000 grant from the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry in two installments of RM20,000 and RM30, 000 for consumer awareness activities last year.

Both Thani and Hashima are also probing whether Cash has received funds from overseas and has some initial information, in at least one instance, that "either US$5,000 monthly or yearly" was channeled to the NGO from the US.

Sindu doesn't deny Hashima's charge that Cash is not a name recognised by the ROS and admits that the Sabah ROS, Matthew Anak Dominic Barin, won't be able to produce the certificate of registration as demanded by the sacked secretary-general despite the latter confirming that Cash was a legal entity.

Cash apparently "does not exist" since the consumer movement in Sabah was registered in Malay as Persatuan Pengguna Sabah in 1978 with its constitution written in English. Subsequently, the Sabah Consumers Association (SCA) crept into popular usage, in translation.

Labuan was unilaterally added to the name and it became the Consumers Association of Sabah and Labuan or Cash after the island was declared a federal territory under the Harris Salleh administration from 1976 to 1985.

"I wonder why small things like this become a controversial issue in the media. If the ROS rules that we cannot use the English language to refer to Persatuan Pengguna Sabah, we will abide by it," said Sindu. "What is the purpose of registering the Consumers Association of Sabah when it means the same thing as the Persatuan Pengguna Sabah?"