{"id":618,"date":"2015-07-02T16:05:57","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T16:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=618"},"modified":"2015-07-03T12:16:39","modified_gmt":"2015-07-03T12:16:39","slug":"msians-in-australia-want-probe-on-mara-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=618","title":{"rendered":"M\u2019sians in Australia want probe on Mara scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cynthia-Gabriel-mara\"<\/a>Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia (SABM) in Australia calls on Australian authorities to investigate and take firm action against Malaysian officials allegedly involved in money laundering and bribery schemes in Australia.<\/p>\n

It was alleged last week that a Malaysian government agency, Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA), which was created in 1965 with the noble aim of helping the rural poor in Malaysia had utilised shelf companies registered in different countries including the British Virgin Islands, which was among the Caribbean tax havens blacklisted by the European Union last week, to purchase properties in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

The Age reported that a top Mara officer, senior officials and a former politician had allegedly spent government funds to buy the Dudley International House apartment block in East Caulfield at a price inflated by the millions.<\/p>\n

The report alleged that the trio overpaid A$4.75 million (RM13.8 million) for the five-storey apartment block as part of a global money laundering and bribery scheme engineered by greedy local developers and powerful officials overseas who pocketed A$4.75 million in bribes on this single deal. This goes to show how far the institution has strayed from its core values.<\/p>\n

If proven, these corrupt officials and their dirty money would have contributed to driving up Australian property prices. This supports the Australian Federal Treasurer, Joe Hockey\u2019s concern about foreign funds flowing into an already overheated property market which prompted Hockey to call for stricter investigations into foreign property investors earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The ease with which dirty money is being moved in and out of Australia should be ringing alarm bells at the Reserve Bank of Australia, Australian Taxation Office and Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) offices.<\/p>\n

The FIRB should investigate how its foreign ownership threshold was circumvented and the Reserve Bank should investigate how monies alleged to be bribes in the millions was remitted overseas with such ease. To this end, with the support of the Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4) in Malaysia, SABM Australia will lodge complaints with the relevant authorities here in Australia to prompt investigations.<\/p>\n

Investigation by Australian authorities is crucial as Malaysian authorities appear to be disinterested in investigating these serious allegations of misconduct and corrupt practices with the Inspector-General of Police stating that the police will not be involved as elements of criminal breach of trust were not present.<\/p>\n

This is surprising as the act is not merely a question of criminal breach of trust. The parties involved are clearly alleged to have contravened anti-money laundering legislation. It is astounding that the Malaysian police are in haste to declare that they will not be involved in investigations without first looking at the money laundering angle.<\/p>\n

However, it is widely perceived that even if Malaysian authorities were to investigate these allegations, the effectiveness of these investigations would be questionable as the Mara chairman Annuar Musa had hinted at the Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak\u2019s involvement in approving the purchase. However, the following day, Annuar contradicted himself by stating that Najib had been opposed to the purchase. Annuar\u2019s contradicting statements have further muddied the waters and cast doubt on Mara\u2019s due diligence procedures.<\/p>\n

This corruption scandal has come hot on the heels of ongoing investigations in relation to the involvement of government agencies and public institutions such as Lembaga Tabung Haji (LTH) in purchasing assets overpriced in the billions from Malaysia\u2019s debt-ridden strategic development fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) to pay down its debt of A$14.5 billion (RM42 billion) which has been invested in assets alleged to have been purchased at premium prices.<\/p>\n

The scandal has cast Malaysians in Australia in poor light. The Malaysian image has certainly been taking a battering in Australia in recent times especially since the authorities\u2019 handling of Malaysian Airlines\u2019 tragedies last year. We do not need corrupt officials to erode what\u2019s left of our image. Left unchecked, Tourism Malaysia\u2019s sloganeering, \u201cMalaysia Truly Asia\u201d may soon paint a completely different picture of what the region has to offer.
\nSource:freemalaysiatoday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia (SABM) in Australia calls on Australian authorities to investigate and take…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":626,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[9,30,33,2],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Cynthia-Gabriel-mara.jpg",648,369,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Cynthia-Gabriel-mara-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Cynthia-Gabriel-mara-300x171.jpg",300,171,true],"medium_large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Cynthia-Gabriel-mara.jpg",640,364,false],"large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Cynthia-Gabriel-mara.jpg",640,364,false],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Cynthia-Gabriel-mara.jpg",648,369,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Cynthia-Gabriel-mara.jpg",648,369,false],"enternews-featured":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Cynthia-Gabriel-mara.jpg",648,369,false],"enternews-medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Cynthia-Gabriel-mara.jpg",648,369,false],"enternews-thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Cynthia-Gabriel-mara.jpg",480,273,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Stories<\/a>","tag_info":"Stories","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=618"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":627,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions\/627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}