|
'They took RM32m'
V. Anbalagan
PUTRAJAYA, Fri
Prominent businessmen Datuk Halim Saad and Anuar Othman siphoned
RM32.5 million
from a toll operator.
By doing so, they could have been flirting with an aggravated form
of criminal breach of trust, an offence which carries a maximum
20-year jail term with whipping and fine upon conviction.
This was the damning finding of the Court of Appeal which ordered
Metramac Corporation Sdn Bhd to pay about RM65 million to a
construction company in compensation for loss of advertising
rights.
The court ruled on the case yesterday but released its written
judgment today.
Judge Datuk Gopal Sri Ram also ordered Metramac to pay Fawziah
Holdings Sdn Bhd all proceeds to be received under future
contract. The case involved Datuk Fawziah Abdul Karim and her
mother Maimon Bee, who were directors and shareholders of
Syarikat Teratai K.G. Sdn Bhd, now known as Metramac. In July 1986,
Fawziah succeeded in obtaining a tender to design, construct and
operate the privatisation of a number of roads, including one
in Jalan Cheras.
But toll collection was suspended in September 1990 after a
demonstration at the Cheras toll plaza. As a result,
compensation of RM764 million was payable by Kuala Lumpur City
Hall to STKG. The then Finance Minister Tun Daim Zainuddin told
the shareholders that the Government did not have money to
compensate them.
STKG was then bought over by Metro Juara for RM97.5 million. Halim
and Anuar were the shareholders of Metro Juara. After this
transaction, the Federal Government suddenly found the funds
to compensate Metro Juara, or Metramac as it was known then.
Sri Ram said: "You may well ask how all this could have happened
without the direct involvement of Tun Daim. It is also
incomprehensible why the defendant, as it was constituted
immediately before the takeover by Metro Juara, was not given
this same financial support by the Federal Government."
He noted that at least two of the pre-takeover shareholders were
either Government concerns or Government-assisted concerns. "I
think that it is a fair question to ask why taxpayers’ money
was channeled into the hands of two private individuals — to
profit them — instead of a wider section of the general public.
"It is not at all clear why the Minister of Finance used his power
to favour Anuar Othman and Datuk Halim Saad."
For completeness, Sri Ram noted that Halim and Anuar had siphoned
from the defendant’s account RM32.5 million.
He said that he had asked the lawyer representing the company how
this could have happened.
"His reply was stupefying," Sri Ram said in his 52-page judgment.
The judge said the counsel had submitted that Anuar and Halim, as
shareholders paid this sum into Metramac’s account and were
now reimbursing themselves.
"This answer overlooks the most elementary principle of company
law," Sri Ram said, adding that shareholders of a company had
no interest, legal or equitable, in the assets of their
company.
He said it was clearly wrong to treat even a private limited company
with only two shareholders any different from any other
company.
Sri Ram said an intentional misappropriation of such a company’s
property, moveable or immoveable was a criminal breach of
trust.
He added if the misappropriation was done by directors as was the
case here, it was an aggravated form of CBT.
"I must therefore be forgiven if I were to look askance at the
counsel’s rationale for what was done in this case," he said.
Lawyers contacted by the New Straits Times today said that
enforcement agencies can open an investigation based on a
court’s decision. |
