Will Abdullah continue to protect Samy Vellu has Mahathir had done for 20 years?

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66,000 Maika shareholders have been crying in vain for justice for 20 years and want to know whether Abdullah will continue to protect Samy Vellu from accountability in the same way that Mahathir had protected the MIC President for over two decades

Speech
- at a meeting of Maika Holdings shareholders
by Lim Kit Siang

(Kuala Lumpur, Sunday): Last year, MIC President Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu said that the Indians in Malaysia had been crying for 140 years because of injustices! What he did not say was that for over 20 years, the Indians had been crying because of the injustices perpetrated by Samy Vellu as the MIC President and the sole Indian Cabinet Minister.

The 20-year Maika Holdings scandal is a classic example where the 66,000 Maika shareholders had been crying for justice for two decades.

In 1992, I had exposed the Maika Telekom shares hijacking scandal where the 66,000 Maika shareholders were robbed of some RM140 million when the ten million Telekom shares allocated for Maika were hijacked by MIC leaders.

On 30^th June 1992, I wrote to the then Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad on the Maika Telekom shares hijacking scandal, where I made two important points:

MAIKA never rejected the offer of nine million Telekom shares which were later hijacked by three companies;

MAIKA never recommended the three companies, Advance Personal Computers Sdn. Bhd, S.B. Management Sdn. Bhd and Clearway Sdn. Bhd. to the Finance Ministry to receive the nine million Telekom shares.

In my letter to the Prime Minister, I also listed instances of the “gangsterism, violence and lawlessness by MIC leaders in the past two months to suppress the MAIKA Telekom shares hijacking scandal”, and one such instance which I cited was:

“The assault of MAIKA shareholders peacefully picketing outside the MAIKA Headquarters on May 13, 1992. The MIC thugs were led by the MIC Selangor Assemblyman for Seri Cahaya, S. Sivalingam, who took part in the assault in full view of the police.”

We had photographic evidence of the assault (in fact, one photograph of the MIC assault “in action” graced the front-page of my book “Samy Vellu and Maika Scandal”), but to date, no one had been arrested or charged with assault although police reports had been lodged.

Sivalingam is now Selangor State Exco member, and I call on the Attorney-General, Tan Sri Gani Patail to re-open the file and prosecute Sivalingam for assault as there is no statute of limitations for criminal actions.

Although the Anti-Corruption Agency investigated the MAIKA Telekom shares hijacking scandal, Samy Vellu was cleared.

The new Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had asked Malaysians to tell him the truth.

What 66,000 Maika shareholders, who have been crying in vain for justice for 20 years, want to know is whether Abdullah will continue to protect Samy Vellu from accountability in the same way that Mahathir had protected the MIC President for over two decades or whether he would uphold justice by taking the following actions:

Re-open as suggested by the Indian Progressive Front (IPF) President Datuk M.G. Pandithan the 1990 MAIKA Telekom shares hijacking scandal;

Conduct a thorough review of the ACA investigations into the MAIKA Telekom shares hijacking scandal to determine whether it had been independent, professional and unbiased;

Commission a public inquiry into the losses, abuses of power, mismanagement and criminal breaches of trust in the 20-year operations and management of MAIKA Holdings.

A recent letter to the press said that if the investments of the 66,000 MAIKA shareholders 20 years ago had been put in a bank paying a fixed average rate of eight per cent (before the recent drop in the interest rates), the original RM106 million subscribed by the MAIKA shareholders would have amounted to some RM284 million by now and if MAIKA had been managed properly, together with the various shares allocations like the 10 million Telekom shares, TV3 shares, etc., the worth of Maika Holdings would have easily been more than RM1 billion today.

This is a powerful argument as to why the government should institute a commission of inquiry into the losses, abuses of power, mismanagement and criminal breach of trust in the 20-year operation and management of MAIKA Holdings.

Finally, it is indeed scandalous and outrageous that the MAIKA financial controller K.V.R. Balakrishnan is a foreigner, an Indian national, and not a Malaysian Indian citizen. Is there not a single Malaysian Indian qualified to become the MAIKA financial controller?

Something is very wrong and even rotten in MAIKA Holdings and the 66,000 MAIKA shareholders should not continue to suffer and cry at the injustices meted out to them for their belief in Samy Vellu’s claim that MAIKA is good for them as well as to uplift the economic status of the Indians, both of which have proved to be empty promises, and it is time that Abdullah step in to give justice to the Malaysian Indians who have become the new underclass in Malaysia.

(30/11/2003)

* Lim Kit Siang, DAP National Chairman