KUALA LUMPUR - A veteran newsman has taken to his blog to wonder whether it’s an Arab thing to compensate employees who are terminated on the grounds of “misbehaviour”.
If Xavier Andre Justo , 49, was not a world class cheat and an extortionist, he added, he can be expected to tell the Thai police and the Court “the true story” if charged.
Misbehaviour was the reason cited by Petrosaudi International (PSI) for terminating its director Justo, a Swiss national, who then left for Thailand to reside there with his RM15.51 million (140 million baht) the company supposedly gave him in compensation.
PSI claims that they compensated Justo when he left the company but he’s now allegedly trying to hustle them for another 90 million baht (RM9.98 million). Justo, according to The Bangkok Post, was reportedly trying to claim the balance of the compensation that he had been promised.
Former New Straits Times Group Editor in Chief Kadir Jasin does not rule out the possibility that Justo was paid a large sum of money to silence him on matters known to him and which the company does not want to be made public.
“This could be one reason that the 1MDB people are feeling very nervous these days. They think that this explains The Sarawak Report exposes. There’s also the Jho Low angle here which would explain the illicit flow of monies.”
“It could be that Justo was a smart fellow who inserted a compensation clause in his employment contract to cover termination,” said Kadir. “Normally, employees accused of misbehaviour are reported to the police. They are not compensated.”
To digress a little, Kadir added that 1MDB and its subsidiaries have also entered into employment contracts which, besides bonuses, promise their executives compensation in case their services are terminated. “It appears that half the executives in 1MDB and its subsidiaries are paid RM2 million a year in salaries alone and that’s considered small.”
The veteran newsman wanted to support the position taken by Umno Youth Chief Khairy Jamaluddin that the arrest of Justo will allow everyone to learn the truth about 1MDB. However, he disagrees with Khairy that Justo used distorted material to blackmail his former employer.
He also wanted to highlight the fact that Malaysia was increasingly in the news worldwide for all the wrong reasons viz. 1MDB, Felda Global Ventures (FGV), and the latest being corrupt dealings in the controversial Mara purchase of properties in Australia. - FMT
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