SAPP wants debate on mystery ‘windfall’

FMT Staff

The opposition party says the RM40 million donation is of public interest since it implicated the Sabah chief minister.

KOTA KINABALU: Chief Minister Musa Aman and his colleagues in the Umno-led Sabah Barisan Nasional government will be sitting uneasy this weekend when the State Legislative Assembly meets and the spotlight is focused on alleged corruption in high places.

Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) legislators have called for a debate on the mysterious RM40 million political donation to Sabah Umno that the party itself and the state BN knew nothing about until about a week ago when it was revealed in Parliament.

The challenge comes after Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nazri Aziz denied in a written reply to the Dewan Rakyat that the S$16 million contraband cash seized at the Hong Kong international airport from Sabahan Michael Chia Tien Foh was Musa’s money.

Nazri disclosed on Oct 11 that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had concluded after a four-year investigation that “no element of corruption was proven” against Musa.
However, SAPP has no intention of letting go of the controversy surrounding the sudden windfall for Sabah Umno.

It is contending that Nazri’s explanation and the government’s refusal to disclose the identity of the donor has only heightened suspicion that has lingered since 2008 when Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) exposed the affair with the seizure.

The secretive nature of the “political donation”, the abnormally long MACC investigation, conflicting statements by the authorities and a paper trail that links various people to the money simply don’t stake up with the conclusion that nothing out of the ordinary has taken place, the opposition party is contending.

The demand for a debate is one of the two motions submitted by the two SAPP legislators Melanie Chia (Luyang) and Liew Teck Chan (Likas) to the secretary of the State Legislative Assembly, Bernard Dalinting.

Liew said the RM40 million political donation to Sabah Umno should be debated in the state assembly as it is of public interest since it implicated Musa.

Smacks of a cover-up

He said the government owes the country an explanation as to why no action was taken against those involved, especially when such an act clearly contravened Section 613 of the Malaysia Anti-Money Laundering Act 2001.

He added that the people have the right to know whether the donor is an individual or a company, whether they had declared the amount and paid income tax on it and why it remained secretive.

“The people of Malaysia also wish to know if money laundering can be legitimised in the name of political donation to Umno,” he said.
Liew, who is also a deputy president of SAPP contended that the manner the Barisan Nasional government had handled the whole affair smacked of a cover-up to bail out Musa, who is also the Sabah Umno and BN chief.

The affair raises questions as to how Sabah Umno managed to secure such a huge political donation and what is the relationship between Chia, Musa, who has said he does not know the businessman, and Sabah Umno.

The twists and turns the investigation has taken has led many to conclude that a cover-up has taken place.

Critics have pointed out that MACC deputy chief commissioner (operations) Shukri Abdul on Oct 5 confirmed that the investigation against Musa was on corruption and the MACC had completed its probe.

However, his statement came with the caveat that MACC’s operations review panel was not satisfied with its findings on the case at the panel’s last sitting in May and wanted further evidence against Musa.

Nazri, on the other hand, has claimed that MACC had concluded that there was no evidence of corruption after four long years of investigating an elementary case of an “unknown” Sabah businessman caught red-handed trying to smuggle in an enormous sum of cash.

Bank statements

With evidence in abundance of an intricate network of money flow originating from timber deals in Sabah and ending up in Musa’s personal account in UBS AG in Zurich, Switzerland, and popping up in the Internet, Nazri’s facile reply has provoked anger.

Critics point to a flow chart showing these movements complete with account details that were produced by the ICAC and conveyed to the MACC, according to online media Sarawak Report, which also posted the chart.

The ICAC had apparently forwarded its findings to MACC with a request for co-operation to wrap up the case, but MACC could not deliver for unknown reasons.

The MACC has not denied that it is in possession of ICAC’s laborious investigations into the case including the money flow chart.

Musa, responding to Sarawak Report’s various allegations that, among others, his two sons studying in Australia regularly received timber kickbacks from bank accounts controlled by Chia, has flatly denied these in a written statement on April 12.

“I deny all these allegations. I wish to put it on record once again that I have no business association whatsoever with an individual named Michael Chia,"  he was quoted as saying.

However, his denial was contradicted by bank statements produced in the Singapore High Court in a civil suit in June brought by a former associate of Chia over some money.

To defend its position in the dispute, UBS AG produced bank statements that show Musa’s sons – Mohammed Hayssam Musa and Hazem Musa Hazem Mubarak Musa – were regular recipients of money remitted from accounts of companies which Chia claimed to be under his control.

The evidence produced by both UBS AG and Chia in court contradicts what Musa claims regarding Chia.

With all this already well known, Liew said the people of Sabah demand to know if MACC is participating in a cover-up on instructions of the BN government.

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has said that there is nothing wrong or illegal for a political party to receive donations and that “every political party has the right to receive political donation as long as it is done in a proper way”.

SAPP, however, contends that nothing that has transpired in the affair can be even remotely viewed as having been “done in proper way”.