Prime Minister’s loud silence on the share shenanigans of 2 listed companies by Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission(MACC) chief commissioner Azam Baki will add two failures of Prime Minister Ismail Sabri more than his predecessor failed Muyiddin Yassin administration. It is ethically, morally and even legally untenable for Azam Baki to continue remaining as MACC chief commissioner when he admitted to the ownership and purchase of millions of shares and warrants in between 2012 to 2016 was transacted on behalf of his younger brother, Nasir Baki, who had used Azam’s shares account as a proxy.
Azam suing the whistle blower Lalitha Kunaratnam for defamation by demanding an apology and RM10 million will not make his impropriety and illegal conduct disappear since Azam’s admission is evidence that he did own the shares and had violated the law by allowing his shares account to be used as a proxy by his younger brother. In fact, this defamation action is unlikely to proceed when there is clearly no cause of action for him against Lalitha who had stated the actual facts, and clearly intended to cover and distract attention from failing to justify his wrongful conduct.
Misusing his share trading account as proxy for his younger brother has also attracted attention of the Securities Commission for possible misuse of trading account. Clearly this is an offence under Section 25A of the Securities Industry (Central Depositories) Act 1991 (Sicda), which forbids individuals from trading securities using another person’s trading account unless he or she is an authorised depository agent.
An offence under Section 25 is punishable with a fine of up to RM3 million or imprisonment of up to 10 years, or both. Further Section 23 of Service Circular 3/2002 forbids a civil servant from owning more than RM100,000 in shares. DAP through, DAP Legal Aid Bureau chief and MP for Bukit Glugor Ram Karpal and Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng has offered to fully assist and back Lalitha should Azam proceed with the defamation action.
Further for Azam to act against the whistle blower for stating the facts already disqualifies him from being a MACC chief Commissioner, who is legally bound to protect whistle blowers as MACC is supposed to act as a guardian against those exposing corruption, abuse of power and financial malpractices. For this reason, much as Ismail want to protect Azam, it is no longer politically tenable for Ismail to do so unless he wants to add on to two more failures than his predecessor, who is known for the failed management of the COVID-19 pandemic and failure to pull the economy out of its economic recession.
Under Ismail’s watch as Prime Minister, the economy and the COVID-19 pandemic has not improved with 31,644 deaths and 2,769,533 infections as at 7 January 2022. Malaysia posted the worst economic growth in ASEAN with negative 4.5% contraction for the 3rd quarter 2021 following the failures of the serial total lockdowns.
The failed management of the flood disasters in several states recently which caused more than 50 deaths and an estimated RM20 billion in economic losses is a black stain on Ismail’s record that will only be compounded adversely by his failure to act against Azam. These two failures will prove that Ismail will be worse than Muhyiddin and leave him with the unenviable record as the worst Prime Minister in Malaysian history.