Saravanan working on book to clear up allegations levelled at MIC

MIC deputy president M Saravanan is writing a book clarifying allegations against his party that he plans to publish soon.

He said the book will include issues related to Maika Holdings, the Malaysian Indian Community Transformation Unit (Mitra) and the 809.4ha (2,000 acres) of land allocated for the welfare of Indian students in Perak.

“Some parties continue to make allegations against MIC regarding Maika Holdings, Mitra and 2,000 acres of land in Perak.

“Unfortunately, those who speak do not know the history of these issues. Some of them do not even know who the director of Maika Holdings is.

“I am writing a book to explain these allegations,” he said at the Federal Territories MIC annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Failed investments?

MIC established Maika in the early 1980s as an investment company by raising RM106 million from about 55,000 shareholders - mostly from the low-income group.

However, it failed to deliver returns to investors - some of whom took out loans and sold assets - for years.

Its financial situation worsened in the 1990s when Maika was supposed to buy 10 million shares of Telekom, but only one million shares could be bought.

Mitra was initially known as the Indian Community Socioeconomic Development Unit.

Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak launched it in 2013 to increase the income of low-income groups in the Indian community.

The issue of Mitra funds became hot after the arrest of several company directors suspected of being involved in the embezzlement of its allocation grants.

A total of 337 companies, associations and NGOs were identified as having received allocation grants from Mitra from 2019 to 2021 with allocations amounting to approximately RM203 million.

On the land given by the Perak government in 2013, it is managed by the Perak India Student Education Development Foundation, which former MIC vice-president S Veerasingam founded.

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