By B Nantha Kumar and S Rutra - Free Malaysia Today
KUALA LUMPUR: "Who is Chitirakala?"
An irate MIC president S Samy Vellu had allegedly posed this question when he was quizzed about P Chitirakala Vasu, the former chief executive officer of the party's troubled education arm.
According to former MIC Youth chief SA Vigneswaran, who raised the prickly issue, his subsequent answer had ruffled feathers during the Maju Institute Education Development's 23rd annual meet at the party headquarters here.
Vigneswaran, who is a MIED life member, responded: "It is the Chithirakala whom you gave a salary of RM25,000.00 from MIED per month, whom you helped get a National Service Camp, whom you gave the Perodua and Proton dealership to and whom you gave paid holidays."
Vigneswaran's initial question, when the accounts for 2009 was tabled, was how much MIED had forked out in legal fees to initiate court action against the former CEO for alleged misappropriation of funds.
“I was informed that the records as of today do not indicate what amount had been paid as legal fees,” he said.
Vigneswaran then plunged the knife deeper when he asked why MIED did not sue the 'negligent' trustees who were the signatories to the cheques for the payments allegedly misappropriated by Chitrakala.
"I got no answers to my questions," he said.
'Negligent' Samy blamed
Going for the jugular, the former MIC Youth chief told Samy Vellu, who is the MIED chairman, that all the problems arose as a result of the latter's negligence.
This, Vigneswaran said, led to a heated exchange.
"I also told him (Samy Vellu) that he had been negligent in his duties as the chairman of the Board of Trustees and he should not be the chairman and the trustee of MIED,” he said.
Early last year, the spotlight fell on MIED when S Sothinathan, who was then MIC vice-president, lodged two police reports over missing MIED files.
The reports claimed that files pertaining to the MIC-owned university Aimst were missing from the party headquarters.
Following this, Samy Vellu issued a show-cause letter to Chitirakala to explain the discrepancies in the accounts of MIED, which runs the party's Aimst University through a subsidiary company, MIED Capital Sdn Bhd.
Chitirakala later accused the MIC president of siphoning MIED funds, which Samy Vellu denied.
She also filed three defamation suits against Samy Vellu, his wife R Indrani and Tamil daily Tamil Nesan, which is linked to the MIC president.
It was also reported that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) is investigating a former executive of MIED who allegedly banked RM4 million into his account that was initially given out as a loan to a subsidiary of MIED.
Mystery over RM7 million debt
Meanwhile, Vigneswaran said when the accounts for 2007 were tabled, he had asked if Rashid Manap, the former chairman of Maika Holdings, had paid RM2 million in cash for MIED shares.
"Samy Vellu repeatedly claimed that he paid in cash. Then, I asked the auditors for re-confirmation on whether the payment was in cash or was it a contra. At that point, Samy Vellu admitted it was a contra made to monies owed to Rashid.
“It is unclear how the contra was done when other trustees had no clue about it and no resolutions were passed to the effect,” he said.
Maika Holdings is the debt-ridden investment arm of MIC, of which Samy Vellu's son Vell Paari is chief executive officer.
Vigneswaran said he had posed this question because MIED accounts showed that the education arm owed Rashid RM7 million.
"It had been alleged over the years that in 2001, Rashid acquired 40% of shares in Aimst Sdn Bhd by contra with RM2 million from the RM7 million allegedly owed by MIED to him.
"How and why MIED owes him RM7 million from the early 1990s to 2008 remains a mystery. How Rashid gave the RM7 million and why MIED borrowed the money from him are also mysteries," he said.
"The members of MIED and some of the trustees have no knowledge of all these," he added.
Samy Vellu had declined to speak to reporters after the meeting.
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