GUAN ENG SEIZES CONTROL OF NAJIB’S RM10 BILLION PIPELINE UNIT: SSER BOSS SACKED, STAFF SUSPENDED AMID SHOCK DISCOVERY NO LAND WAS EVER BOUGHT & NO GREEN LIGHT OBTAINED FROM PETRONAS

After the government exposed the alleged RM9.4 billion Suria Strategic Energy Resources (SSER) pipeline scandal, MACC has moved to raid the company’s offices.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng confirmed today that a report had been filed with the commission.

He said the ministry has taken control over SSER’s offices, and that all of its employees have been placed on garden leave until further notice.

In an update on the actions taken by the Treasury thus far, Lim also stated that SSER president Mohammed Azhar Osman Khairuddin was removed as a director of the company.

“The Finance Ministry is in the process of appointing an executive committee led by an accounting firm to operate the company and investigate the transactions made by SSER,” his statement read.

Last week, Lim alleged that a payment of RM8.3 billion or 88 percent of the project value was made to the company despite only 13 percent of progressive works been completed.

Lim said the land has not been acquired and the laws were not complied with.

On June 5, former prime minister and ex-finance minister Najib Abdul Razak defendedhis administration’s award of two petrochemical and gas pipeline projects worth RM9.4 billion to China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau (CPPB) by SSER.

He was responding to Lim who had demanded an explanation from Najib on the “suspicious transactions” surrounding the two pipeline projects.

“Najib deliberately did not focus.on the principal questions surrounding the RM9.4 billion pipeline scandal but instead focused on alleged purported benefits to the country from signing this billion ringgit contract,” said the former Penang chief minister.

Najib had claimed that he and China’s Premier Li Keqiang had witnessed the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the pipeline projects along with other projects while in Beijing on May 14, 2017.  – M’kini

Finance Ministry discovers no land, no Petronas greenlight in RM9.4b oil project scandal

KUALA LUMPUR – The Najib administration had paid out 88 per cent of RM9.4 billion for two oil-related projects despite not having obtained the necessary rights from oil giant Petronas or the land required, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng disclosed today.

Lim was referring to the Multi-Product Pipeline (MPP) and Trans-Sabah Gas Pipeline (TSGP) projects, which was recently discovered to have only had been completed by 13 per cent by the Chinese firm contracted to do so.

“Worse, we have since discovered that SSER has failed to secure any rights from Petronas as required by law to lay the pipes for MPP, and has also failed to acquire the necessary land in Sabah to do the same for TSGP,” he said in a statement today.

– Malay Mail

MKINI / MALAY MAIL