KUALA LUMPUR - Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA) has become a “fiefdom” for the country’s political elites, retired veteran newsman Datuk A. Kadir Jasin lamented today as the government agency’s subsidiary remains embroiled in controversy over allegedly overpriced foreign property buys.
Kadir said the moral failures spreading across other government entities, such as alleged bribery and power abuse, was worse when it happens in MARA, an agency set up to empower the country’s Bumiputeras.
He pointed out that the agency, along with the Rural Industrial Development Authority, have in the past contributed much to the Malays and rural residents.
“Unfortunately since the last decades, MARA has become like family inheritance or the fiefdom of political elites that were entrusted with managing and administering it,” the former group editor-in-chief of New Straits Times said today.
Kadir said he was not surprised by the scandal involving MARA Inc’s property purchases in Australia - which allegedly involved RM13 million worth of kickbacks in one case.
“After 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), there is nothing else that is shocking, impossible and extraordinary.
“1MDB set the standard and new watermark in business and corporate governance and government-linked agency,” he said of the state-owned investment firm that is still being investigated.
Kadir said controversies involving other government-linked entities such as Felda Global Ventures Berhad, Tabung Haji, Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera, Pembinaan PFI Sdn Bhd and SRC International no longer surprise him.
He claimed that there was a systemic spread of graft and power abuse in the public sector, spurred on by corrupt individuals flocking together and with the underlings following their superiors’ lead in corruption.
Kadir also cautioned against placing too much hope that the guilty parties in MARA Inc’s deals would be punished, saying it was all too frequent that rain did not come despite booming thunder.
Yesterday, MARA suspended two top MARA Inc officials — chairman Datuk Mohamad Lan Allani and chief executive Datuk Abd Halim Rahim — pending investigation on the firm’s property deals in Australia.
Tan Sri Annuar Musa
International audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers will conduct an audit of MARA Inc’s investments not just in Australia, but the UK as well, MARA said yesterday.
Unhappy with the local police clearing MARA as it concluded no criminal breach of trust was involved, MARA said it will meet with the police soon and pledged to give full cooperation.
Apart from The Age’s expose on the RM65 million Dudley House purchase in which MARA Inc officials allegedly pocketed about RM13 million in kickbacks, PKR’s Rafizi Rafizi has raised the alarm over three other property deals made by the MARA subsidiary under similarly dubious circumstances.
He claimed the properties were either purchased through an offshore company or the transaction was wired through three different companies in three different countries. - Malay mail
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