By FMT StaffKUALA KUBU BARU: PKR's Hulu Selangor by-election candidate Zaid Ibrahim today urged the government to come clean on its role in bailing out Maika Holdings.
He said the Maika shareholders – of which about 1,500 are from Hulu Selangor – have waited long enough to be repaid for their investments in the MIC's investment arm.
“Suddenly close to the by-election there is this story that these shareholders will be paid in full and that Maika will be taken over by a local Indian-owned consortium.
“This sounds like a political gimmick. Are they trying to fool the people once again?” asked Zaid.
He was referrring to a Bernama story on April 16 that a local Indian private sector group had agreed to purchase Maika for about RM106 million.
Yesterday Maika's CEO S Vell Paari said the deal to sell Maika to the consortium was for real and that details were being worked out. It is learnt that the consortium is headed by G Gnanalingam, the executive chairman of Westports.
Vell Paari also denied it was an election gimmick to attract Indian voters in Hulu Selangor.
Zaid said that the manner the news was leaked on the Maika buy-over plan – via a source story in Bernama – indicated that the story was planted to gain some mileage for the BN's Hulu Selangor campaign.
“This is an important development for Maika and its shareholders and the normal way would be for its CEO to make an official announcement after finalising every details, not for the MIC leaders to thank the government for an announcement based on a source story,” he added.
“I am waiting for full details to be revealed and I hope they can show the investors before the by-election that this is not a political gimmick,” he said.
Life savings used to invest
Maika shareholders are mainly poor Indian estate workers who had invested in Maika shares in 1984 by pawning their jewellery while some had withdrawn their life savings.
Maika was established in 1982 to enable Malaysian Indians to participate in the country's economic growth. However, the company was unable to produce the required results, much to the disillusionment of its shareholders.
The relatively poor return on investment of Maika shares had been a nagging problem for the MIC and the Malaysian Indian community for the past 26 years.
The matter had been brought to the attention of the government on numerous occasions and it was only recently that a decision was made to resolve it.
The April 25 Hulu Selangor by-election will see Zaid taking on BN's P Kamalanathan for the seat which was won by PKR from MIC in the March 2008 general election.
The seat fell vacant following the death of Zainal Abidin Ahmad on March 25.
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