NOW lodges report over Mara's Aussie property buys
National Oversight and Whistleblowers (NOW) director Akmal Nasir today lodged a police report over allegations that Mara had overpaid for the purchase of several properties in Australia.
Akmal said that his report was to get authorities to investigate the scandal involving the purchases for which Mara had overpaid by RM129 million.
He said the bumiputra assistance agency had allegedly failed to undertake its own probe despite the case having been exposed eight months ago.
“The report is also to initiate investigations against individuals named by an Australian court," he said in a statement.
Earlier this week, PKR secretary-general Rafizi Ramli had revealed several documents filed in Australian court that named individuals connected to Mara’s Dudley House in Melbourne allegedly purchased at an inflated price of AUD22.5 million.
A total of AUD4.75 million was allegedly channelled back as kickbacks for Malaysian companies linked to Mara.
Akmal said the documents were handed over to the police to assist them in their investigations.
"These documents included a statement of claim and several invoices as revealed by (Pandan MP) Rafizi Ramli previously, an organisation chart of the company and court transcripts," he said.
Akmal said they wanted the police to probe if there were elements of criminal breach of trust and especially if Mara's top management or politicians were involved.
"We hope this report will be a way to recover the money overpaid and have it returned to Mara.
"We also hope this can help protect the interest and welfare of the people, especially youths who are students and entrepreneurs who deserve aid from Mara,” he added.
Earlier today, Rural and Regional Development minister Ismail Sabri Yaacob had refuted Rafizi’s claims that the agency has failed to take any action on the case hich was first reported by Australia’s The Age newspaper in July last year.
Instead, he insisted that the matter is now beyond Mara’s control and that it has offered its full cooperation in investigations conducted by the MACC.
For more news and views that matter, subscribe and support independent media for only RM0.36 sen a day:
Subscribe now