Umno Incorporated (part 4)
In Realmild’s accounts, the money appeared as a loan to the company from the shareholders of the company. Then the ‘loan’ was wiped out or written off in exchange for another company called Radicare Sdn Bhd. But then in the books it shows that Radicare was sold for merely RM2 and not RM200 million or whatever amount of ‘shareholders’ advances’ that still reflected in the books at that time.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
The Daim-Anwar team
In 1992, Anwar Ibrahim, who had just taken over the Finance Minister’s job from Tun Daim Zainuddin, made his move to control the mainstream media in preparation to challenge Tun Ghafar Baba (picture below) at the end of 1993 for the post of Deputy President of Umno and hence for the post of Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia as well.
Anwar’s first move was to use Realmild (M) Sdn Bhd as the vehicle to acquire the media conglomerate, NSTP, and the Umno-owned TV station, TV3. Anwar’s four nominees or ‘fronts’ for this exercise were Abdul Kadir Jasin, Mohd Noor Mutalib, Ahmad Nazri Abdullah and Khalid Ahmad. And they did this through a management buyout or MBO costing RM800 million, the largest MBO ever in Malaysian corporate history.
However, Realmild was too small to ‘swallow’ a media conglomerate to the tune of RM800 million so they had to beef up the company’s balance sheet. And they did this by injecting cash of about RM200 million into the company.
But then who owns this RM200 million and where did the money come from? Did the RM200 million belong to Abdul Kadir Jasin, Mohd Noor Mutalib, Ahmad Nazri Abdullah and Khalid Ahmad and if so how did they acquire this money when their tax returns do not show that they had earned that much money?
That is the first mystery. RM200 million appeared from nowhere and with no tangible evidence to account for it. But the even bigger mystery, however, is what happened to that money later and how did it just disappear as mysteriously as it had appeared?
In Realmild’s accounts, the money appeared as a loan to the company from the shareholders of the company. Then the ‘loan’ was wiped out or written off in exchange for another company called Radicare Sdn Bhd. But then in the books it shows that Radicare was sold for merely RM2 and not RM200 million or whatever amount of ‘shareholders’ advances’ that still reflected in the books at that time.
That is the second mystery.
And to camouflage this whole thing they signed a Settlement Agreement on 3rd August 1999, which the public or auditors were not told about. Basically, this Settlement Agreement was the camouflage to wipe the books clean and to not have to explain where the RM200 million came from and where it went to later.
I suppose this is what they mean by telling a lie to cover another lie.
