SAS fiasco: Where's the RM50million?

A Sabah minister has been asked to explain how RM50 million paid by a businessman to a state agency in a share transaction 12 years ago disappeared.

According to Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP), the minister and state government owed the people and investors an explanation as to how the amount paid by Joseph Ambrose Lee’s former company Suniwang Holdings Sdn Bhd to Warisan Harta Saabah Sdn Bhd (WHSSB) in January 1998, vanished.

SAPP secretary-general Richard Yong was responding to State Resource Development and Information Technology Minister Yee Moh Chai’s statement while debating on the motion on the Saham Amanah Sabah (SAS) fiasco in the state legislative assembly recently.

Yee disclosed that the fund managers said that they had never received the amount.

“It has been more than a week since the debate over the SAS issue. During the debate, Yee revealed that he had contacted the SAS Board about the RM50 million. This is the first time that he admitted to being in contact with SAS. In the past, he feigned ignorance of SAS affairs," said Yong.

According to Yong, the minister reportedly said: “SAS confirmed to me that they never received any of the RM50 million…”

“So, where is the RM50 million?” asked the SAPP leader. “Did any person illegally pocket the money? If so, who and why has there been no action taken?”

“This is what people are waiting to know. This matter has gone on for 12 years. Eight of those 12 years, Yee was a full minster in the state cabinet. Don’t try to fool the people that after eight years, he still does not know what happened in SAS.

"He has incessantly harped on the SAS issue so he must not hide the facts anymore,” he said.

'Umno leaders' involvement'

Yong said it was also puzzling that last week, PBS supreme councillor and lawyer Chin Tek Ming had challenged SAPP president Yong Teck Lee to disclose the names of the Umno leaders involved in the SAS fiasco.

The SAPP president, Yong said, had never implied that Umno leaders were or implicated in the scandal before this.

He said that while public documents showed that Umno members were on the SAS Board, nobody, until Chin’s challenge, said they were implicated.

“Is this the real reason why Barisan Nasional leaders have refused to publish a White Paper on the SAS fiasco?" he asked alluding to the “defeated by time” manoeuvre by the state government to rule out a motion on the issue during the April sitting of the legislative assembly.

The SAPP president had at the time been furious with the tactic to deny a debate on the fund fiasco and had labelled the cabinet cowards, adding that it was also strange that Chief Minister Musa Aman had dismissed the SAS issue as “petty”.

“The records prove that the ministers were trying to avoid a debate on the SAS issue," said Yong.

He said that it was also puzzling that during the debate for a motion for a White Paper on the issue at the last assembly sitting, the 32 Umno assembly members were quiet.

“Why? Umno YBs have been very vocal on other issues but why did Umno YBs remain silent on the SAS issue?” he asked.

courtesy of FMT