I read with amusement the call by Deputy Finance Minister, Datuk Ahmad Maslan asking me to “apologise for accusing 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) subsidiaries of not submitting their financial statements to the Registrar of Companies”.
I have made the accusation repeatedly in the current parliamentary session. I raised it the first time on the 9th October when I accused 1MDB Real Estate Sdn Bhd and 1MDB Energy (Langat) for not filing their accounts for more than 2 years. I had then received a reply from the Prime Minister that their accounts will be filed at the end of October.
I then did another press conference on 3rd November criticising 1MDB and its subsidiaries for still not having submitted their accounts despite the 31st October deadline.
The parent company, 1MDB finally filed their accounts on the 5th November and I was able to extract the company’s account from the SSM website after paying the necessary fees.
However, I raised the matter again in a press conference and during the Parliamentary finance ministry committee stage debate on the 11th November on the fact that the subsidiaries have still not submitted their accounts. I had then attached with my press statement the summary financial information extracted from the SSM website for 12 1MDB subsidiaries. Unlike the 1MDB extract, the record of these companies all showed accounts which have not been filed since March 2013, December 2012 and March 2012.
If I was wrong with my facts, certainly the then responding Deputy Finance Minister, Datuk Chua Tee Yong could have easily told me off and corrected me. However, he refused to answer any of the questions on 1MDB which I raised.
Now, once again, I did the latest extract yesterday after reading Datuk Ahmad Maslan’s accusation for 1MDB Energy (Langat) Sdn Bhd. It was another waste of RM15 because the information remain unchanged that no accounts have been filed since March 2012.
Perhaps if Datuk Ahmad Maslan should make the accusation in the House and we will have a second bite of the cherry to refer him to the Rights and Privileges Committee again.
This matter is important and I will raise it again during the Committee Stage debate for the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs later on the failure of these companies to submit accounts on a timely basis,
This is because the directors of all these companies have run afoul of the Companies Act 1965 by failing to hold the company’s Annual General Meetings, file its Annual Returns to the Registrar of Companies together with their Audited Financial Report.
Clause 169(1) of the Companies Act says that “the directors of every company shall, at some date not later than eighteen months after the incorporation of the company and subsequently once at least in every calendar year at intervals of not more than fifteen months, lay before the company at its annual general meeting a profit and loss account for the period since the preceding account (or in the case of the first account, since the incorporation of the company) made up to a date not more than six months before the date of the meeting.
Under Clause 171(1), the Act dictates imprisonment for 5 years or RM30,000 “if any director of a company fails to comply or to take all reasonable steps to secure compliance by the company with the foregoing provisions of this Division or has by his own wilful act been the cause of any default by the company thereunder, he shall be guilty of an offence against this Act.”
It must be asked, why is it that CCM has failed to act against these companies and their directors?