Maju Institute of Educational Development (MIED) chief S Samy Vellu expressed disappointment with the deputy public prosecutor on the lack of progress made in a "criminal case" involving RM18 million of its funds.

samy vellu exclusive on tamil schools 080708 06 "It has been several months since we lodged a police report on the missing millions and virtually nothing has been done so far," Samy Vellu told Malaysiakini .

"Justice delayed is justice denied. How long do we have to wait for the DPP to take action? Meanwhile, the money which is no longer with us is fast disappearing in all sorts of ways from the various bank accounts of people linked to the chief suspect," he added.

MIED, Samy Vellu said, has thus far given out RM60 million in loans and scholarships to 10,000 students, not all Indian Malaysians, over the last 20 years.

Samy Vellu, who is also MIC president, was responding to an earlier report in Malaysiakini which quoted MIED’s former CEO P Chithirakala Vasu as saying that he wants to "take the party’s successful ventures with him", and leave behind an empty shell for his successor G Palanivel.

He dismissed the claims as a public relations gimmick by the former CEO "who is being treated by a certain Tamil newspaper as a heroine of sorts".

'Open and shut' case

The money was reportedly found "missing" from MIED after Samy Vellu received an urgent tip-off from a senior MIC leader when he was in Kedah on a working visit.

The senior MIC leader confronted Samy Vellu "very rudely' and alleged that serious hanky-panky was going on at MIED and no one was any wiser.

According to Samy Vellu, MIED brought in forensic accounting experts to sift through the accounts. These accounts had allegedly not been audited and submitted for several years under its previous CEO.

p chithirakala on mied 280209 02 Chithirakala was unceremoniously shown the door by MIED when 'discrepancies' in its accounts were found.

Samy Vellu claimed that the MIED case not only involves criminal breach of trust but also money laundering.

"This is an open and shut case. Once it comes to court, it will be over quickly because all the evidence is there," he said. "The forensic accounting experts did a thorough job of tracing the trail of the missing RM18 million."

Samy Vellu said MIED managed to get a High Court order to freeze the bank accounts of its former CEO as part of the probe into the missing RM18 million.

The freeze order followed a police report lodged by MIED on the monies missing from its coffers. However, the order covered only RM3 million believed to be part of the missing RM18 million.

"The rest of the missing RM18 million was together with the RM3 million which was eventually frozen, but they disappeared quickly the moment we lodged a police report and went to court to get a freeze order.

"By the time we obtained the court order, only RM3 million was left," said the MIC president.

MIED, said Samy Vellu, tried to have the court order extended to include the bank accounts of the brother-in-law and husband of the former CEO and several others but was unsuccessful.

Samy Vellu, however, could not explain why the MIED accounts were not kept properly, audited and submitted for several years although he conceded that more attention should have been paid to the running of MIED.

He was also unaware as to how the MIC leader who first tipped him off in Kedah discovered that substantial sums were missing from the MIED's coffers.

Taking an educated guess, he said that the irregularities may have surfaced when many people came to know of suspicious activities involving the MIED.

There were reports on contracts given out at inflated value by the Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology University (Aimst), a private university set up in Kedah by Samy Vellu. MIED apparently paid out for the said contracts.

News also came in from reliable sources of funds being transferred to England and Australia from MIED for purposes not linked to the activities of the NGO.

Samy Vellu has details on these transfers but he wants to keep them under wraps for now and let the court deal with them when the case comes up.

"We will get justice for the thousands of poor students of MIED who are now suffering because of the misdeeds of a few people," he said.

NGOs may come under a foundation

Asked about the links between MIED and Aimst on the one hand and MIC, Samy clarified that there were none.

Media reports generally describe MIED as the educational arm of the MIC and describe Aimst as a MIC-owned university. MIC has its own MIC education fund and the Malaysian Indian Scholarship Fund.

"Both - MIED and Aimst - are NGOs set up by me in my personal capacity when the Mahathir government excluded the Indian community from the mainstream and MIC could not do anything about this.

"Just because I happened to be MIC president, it does not mean MIED and Aimst belong to MIC," said Samy Vellu.

Meanwhile, the MIC president re-confirmed that his exit strategy remains on track. He intends to go on two months leave early next year and focus on the NGOs that he has set up over the years.

He will also spend all his time with the NGOs including MIED and Aimst after he steps down as MIC president before his term ends in 2012.

He does not rule out bringing all the NGOs headed by him into a foundation headed by a board of trustees of prominent and international non-politicians including representation from non-Indians.