Sue me and BHIC if Zainab is not your wife, Rafizi tells Latiff

 

PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli (left) has claimed that former deputy defence minister Abd Latiff Ahmad’s wife was the owner of two companies that siphoned funds from the LCS project.

PETALING JAYA: PKR’s Rafizi Ramli has challenged special functions minister Abd Latiff Ahmad to sue him and Boustead Heavy Industries Corporation (BHIC) over the identity of a woman who allegedly misappropriated funds for the RM9 billion littoral combat ships (LCS) project.

The PKR deputy president previously said the woman, Zainab Mohd Salleh, was Latiff’s second wife, adding that BHIC’s recently declassified audit report also named Zainab as Latiff’s spouse.

“If Latiff has no connections to Zainab nor is he or his family involved in the LCS project, he should immediately sue BHIC, Alliance IFA Sdn Bhd (the firm that conducted BHIC’s forensic audit) and me,” he said in a statement.

Earlier today, Latiff insisted that he did not have a wife named Zainab Salleh. He also maintained that “none of my family members are involved in the business of supplying or constructing littoral combat ships”.

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Latiff had previously denied that the woman was his wife, saying that he was prepared to cooperate with the authorities if they wished to investigate the matter.

Rafizi said Latiff’s latest denial bore no weight given that he failed to provide “any substantial evidence” to dismiss the claims and documents in the BHIC audit report.

He had claimed on Aug 22 that Latiff’s wife was the owner of two companies that had siphoned funds from the LCS project.

He alleged that the companies were appointed as technical consultants and suppliers of spare parts, and had sent invoices for work that was never done.

The former Pandan MP also alleged that the two companies bore names similar to a French company and were registered as offshore companies in Malta and Labuan, and that as much as RM243 million was misappropriated.

He also said the schemes to misappropriate LCS funds using companies allegedly linked to Latiff, who was the deputy defence minister from 2008 to 2013, was no coincidence.

The LCS project has come under scrutiny for its cost and delay in delivery after Putrajaya had spent RM6.08 billion, but none of the six ships have been completed or delivered, according to Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee. - FMT