PAC on KJ's ECM-Libra case - why was DAP member silent?

This is rather interesting.

Malaysiakini reported JB UMNO MP Shahrir Samad, chair of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC), touching on the Libra-ECM merger involving the world’s most famous SIL. Before I comment on further, let’s refresh ourselves with the story of ECM-Libra.

In an earlier posting 'Lucky' Khairy Jamaluddin I blogged on how Dr Mahathir questioned the PM’s 31-year old son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin, amassing his millions to purchase shares worth RM 9.2 million in the financial advisory company ECM-Libra.

Mahathir said that only a person with money would have been allowed to borrow more money from a bank.

I also said: “Aha, which explains why my application for a bank loan was turned down, despite years of keeping an account with that bank. And mind you, I didn’t even ask for one million, let alone 9. But I must admit my account figures before the decimal point are too pathetic and embarrassing to even mention here.”

Then in a following posting Khairy Jamaluddin - Questions on his Loans I discussed how AAB defended Khairy’s business dealings. He said iof his SIL: “He applied for loans to buy some small amount of shares in ECM-Libra.”

But AAB, like Khairy, didn’t explain how in the world did a company, ECM-Libra, merely loan out RM 9.2 millions to a 31-year old bloke to buy the shares of the same company?

Additionally, the approved merger of ECM Libra with Avenue Capital Resources Berhad, a Finance Ministry-linked company, has, as Malaysiakini reported, raised many eyebrows.

A Malaysiakini reader BOLH wrote in to the online newspaper to query the means by which Khairy had, as he [Khairy] himself confessed, ‘luckily’ obtained a loan from ECM-Libra. BOLH wants to know what collateral Khairy had offered. He asked:

“Khairy said that he borrowed money from certain parties to finance his acquisition of a substantial stake in ECM-Libra. We must not forget that Khairy is linked to the prime minister and he must come clean.”

“Who are these people who financed him? If these parties truly had financed him, surely there must be some form of collateral to back this loan and such collateral must be greater than or equal to the sum loaned to Khairy. Nobody gives out money for nothing even if you are the son-in-law of the prime minister.”

“If there is such a collateral, what is it and where did it originate from? If it is from Khairy, then how did he come by with such a collateral of such great amount?”

Another Malaysiakini reader, Ibnu Hakeem, also wrote in and asked:

"Khairy has been a director of ECM-Libra since July 2004, not long after his father-in-law, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, succeeded Dr Mahathir Mohamad as prime minister."

"According to Section 131 of the Companies Act, it is illegal for a company to make a loan to anyone (especially a director) to buy its own shares. In this case, ECM Libra is also a financial institution (a so-called investment bank) which means it is also under the purview of the Bafia (Banking and Financial Institutions Act). The Bafia has a few more restrictions than the Companies Act."

"Since Khairy has made a public confession, the attorney-general and Bank Negara should investigate if there is any breach of either the Companies Act, the Bafia, or both."

Anyway, according to Shahrir Samad, the PAC investigations on the ECM-Libra hit an unexpected snag, because when Second Finance Minister Nor Mohamed Yakcop came before PAC to answer the committee’s questions, no PAC member asked any question.

While one can understand BN members of PAC maintaining elegant silence, what happened to those opposition parliamentarians like DAP’s Tan who is also a PAC member?

Shahrir complained: “I guided everybody to a point that anyone could have picked up from where the minutes left off but... nobody did. Why do I always have to do the work?”

We need to ask, was Tan there or PAC had held that hearing minus him? If he was present maybe he can explain why he asked no question.