How Much Interest Does Rafidah Have In Air Asia?

The bottom line is Rafidah has been accused of corruption. And the allegation was made in Parliament. Her corruption involves public company shares and APs that she had been awarding to her family, proxies and nominees. She is said to have amassed at least RM8 billion over those 21 years that she was the Minister of Trade. And much of that money, through proxies and nominees, has been parked in various companies and investments, Air Asia being just one of them.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER 

Raja Petra Kamarudin

The allegations of massive and blatant corruption levelled against Rafidah Aziz by those from Umno as well as those from the opposition are well-documented. In fact, Rafidah’s greatest critic is DAP leader Lim Kit Siang, who has since strangely gone silent.

Is Kit Siang now silent because Rafidah is still fiercely loyal to Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Mahathir is Pakatan Harapan’s Chairman and Prime Minister-in-waiting? In that case, why has Rafidah not yet resigned from Umno and joined PPBM as one of its senior leaders? Is this because she has so much baggage that if she joins PPBM she is going to hurt both the party and Pakatan Harapan?

Yes, inviting Rafidah into PPBM is like inviting Jonah onto the ship — the ship would be doomed. There are too many unanswered questions hanging over her head and she will need to reply to all these questions before Malaysians would vote PPBM and Pakatan Harapan if she were to join them. Just one question alone — how much beneficial or indirect interest does she have in Air Asia Berhad? — is enough to sink the PPBM ship and scuttle Pakatan Harapan.

Air Asia Berhad, owned by Tune Group, in turn owns AirAsia X, Thai AirAsia, Indonesia AirAsia, Indonesia AirAsia X, Philippines AirAsia, and AirAsia India. Rafidah is Chairperson of AirAsia X. Tune Group was founded by Tony Fernandes and Kamarudin Meranun. While everyone knows who Tony is, who is this Kamarudin who started out as a Portfolio Manager in Arab-Malaysian Merchant Bank 30 years ago and, today, is worth almost RM3 billion?

Yes, Air Asia is a bit shrouded in mystery and there is much speculation as to who is really behind them. While it cannot be denied that Tony is still the prime mover, there are questions as to what in heaven’s name is Rafidah doing there? Is Rafidah there because she has an interest in the company parked under nominees-proxies? For example, AirAsia X has four billion shares with only half a billion under Air Asia Berhad and the balance 3.5 billion under nominees.

That is the question Kit Siang would be asking if he did not want to offend Mahathir by asking it.

Kit Siang has been gunning for Rafidah since 1987. On 5th October 2005, Kit Siang said, “Yesterday, during question time, the Minister for International Trade and Industry, Datuk Paduka Rafidah Aziz, evaded all six of my supplementary questions. I had asked in particular whether the 1997 decision to give APs to MPs, when for 27 years from 1970 to 1997 MPs were not entitled to APs, were meant to silence MPs in connection with the corruption scandal involving Rafidah concerning the MITI allocation of 1.5 million Leader Universal Holdings Bhd. shares and 4.1 million FACB shares to her son-in-law Fazrin Azwar.”

This matter was raised two days ago in the article ‘Rafidah Revealed That Mahathir Is Corrupt’ (READ HERE). Basically, Ezam Mohd Nor also raised the same matter in November 1999 during a press conference at the party HQ and for that he was jailed two years under the Official Secrets Act.

What happened was Rafidah denied she had committed a crime by chairing the Ministry of Trade meeting that allocated 1.5 million Leader Universal Holdings Bhd shares and 4.1 million FACB shares to her son-in-law, Fazrin Azwar, by arguing that she chaired the meeting to make sure the committee allocated shares to Mahathir’s son, on the specific instructions of Mahathir.

Rafidah saved her neck by saying that Mahathir asked her to chair the meeting — therefore she is not guilty of corruption.

Mahathir said he saved Rafidah from jail three times

Kit Siang added, “In my supplementary question, I had referred to the finding in 1995 by the then head of the Prosecution Department in the Attorney-General’s Chambers, Gani Patail, who is now the Attorney-General, that there is prima facie basis for the arrest and prosecution of Rafidah on five counts of corruption under Section 2(2) Ordinance 22, 1970.”

“Parti Keadilan Rakyat youth chief Mohd Ezam Mohd Nor was convicted under the Official Secrets Act and served a jail sentence for possession of the document certifying that Gani Patail had made such a recommendation to prosecute Rafidah for corruption, which is another proof of the veracity of such a document.”

“In view of the latest developments in the AP scandal, I call for the re-opening of the case of the scandal involving Rafidah in connection with the allocation of millions of bumiputra-reserved shares to her son-in-law in her capacity as Chairperson of MITI Bumiputra Shares Allocation Committee, based on the 1995 recommendation of the head of the prosecution of the Attorney-General’s Chambers for the prosecution of Rafidah.”

Yes, this matter was raised in Parliament and Kit Siang’s complaint was that Rafidah did not respond to these questions. So, these questions are on record in the 4th October 2005 Hansards. And it is also on record that Rafidah did not reply to the questions. And according to Pakatan Harapan standards, if you do not reply to the questions that means the allegations are true.

Tracking down where Rafidah has parked her RM8 billion is like looking for a needle in a haystack

The bottom line is Rafidah has been accused of corruption. And the allegation was made in Parliament. Her corruption involves public company shares and APs that she had been awarding to her family, proxies and nominees. She is said to have amassed at least RM8 billion over those 21 years that she was the Minister of Trade. And much of that money, through proxies and nominees, has been parked in various companies and investments, Air Asia being just one of them.

As Kit Siang said on 5th October 2005, Rafidah had failed to explain why she created three ‘AP King of Kings’ — Tan Sri Nasimuddin SM Amin, Datuk Syed Azman Syed Ibrahim and Datuk Mohd Haniff Abdul Aziz — who were collectively issued 33,218 APs or 50.1% of total AP allocation for 2004 and 28,283 APs or 41% of total AP allocation for 2005.

Yes, over the 21 years that Rafidah was the Minister of Trade, she awarded more than RM40 billion worth of APs and allocated tens of billions more in public company shares to selected ‘Bumiputera investors’. And half of that went to her family, cronies, proxies, nominees and trustees. So how much are we talking about in total here? Your guess is as good as mine, and even if you pluck a figure from the air and say it is RM10 billion, it would most likely still be a conservative estimate.

Whatever you might think of Rafidah, one thing for sure is, she is not stupid. And people as clever as Rafidah do not leave a paper trail. So, you can dig and dig but you will not find any smoking gun. But it is not that she has never been caught. She was caught three times and each time Mahathir bailed her out. And this was confirmed by Kit Siang who said, “Former Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, had publicly said that he had saved Rafidah three times. Let Mahathir or Rafidah say whether this is one of the three times in which Rafidah was saved by the former Prime Minister, and what were the other two occasions?”

Kit Siang no longer talks about Rafidah because Mahathir is now Pakatan’s Chairman and PM-in-waiting

Yes, that was what Kit Siang said that Mahathir said. It is not what we say. Kit Siang said Rafidah was caught three times and each time Mahathir saved her neck. Once was when she was caught regarding the 1.5 million Leader Universal Holdings Bhd shares and 4.1 million FACB shares allocated to her son-in-law, Fazrin Azwar. In this case the AG wanted to prosecute Rafidah but Mahathir stopped him and asked him to close the file (NFA or no further action). And Kit Siang wanted to know, which were the other two occasions?

So, there you have it. Questions, questions and more questions, and no answers forthcoming. Kit Siang has been asking these questions since the 1980s and today we are asking as well. But we have only one question for now. And that question is: how much beneficial interest does Rafidah have in Air Asia?