Malaysia’s former premier, Mahathir Mohamad, allegedly received RM2.6 million (US$580,000) in political donations from Ultra Kirana Sdn Bhd (UKSB), a key witness told the Shah Alam High Court on Monday (July 25).
UKSB is a local company embroiled in the ongoing corruption trial of former deputy prime minister and United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
Ahmad Zahid is facing 33 charges of receiving bribes totalling RM42 million from UKSB as an inducement to extend the company’s contract as the operator of the One Stop Centre (OSC) service in China and the foreign visa system (VLN) for the Home Ministry.
What’s ironic is that Mahathir, during his second tenure as PM in 2018, was the one who pushed for Malaysia’s former premier and convicted thief, Najib Abdul Razak, to be jailed for stealing RM2.67 billion from 1MDB, a government-run strategic development company.
When Pakatan Harapan won the last general election, a string of corruption cases against famous politicians opened up, including Zahid, Najib and others.
According to Bernama, former UKSB administrative manager David Tan Siong Sun revealed that the company gave the funds through Mahathir’s nephew Rahmat Abu Bakar, coding it “Kedahan” which was used as a reference in the ledger.
For context, 97 year-old Mahathir was born in Alor Setar, Kedah, and is currently the member of parliament for Langkawi, which is also in Kedah.
During cross-examination, Zahid’s defense lawyer, Ahmad Zaidi, asked Tan whether the funds were intended to be passed to Dr Mahathir for political purposes, Tan answered: “That’s correct.”
Tan said two payments of RM1.3 million each were made after the country’s 14th general election in August and September 2018 respectively.
Tan alleged that the funds were for the Langkawi MP and his political party, Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) which Mahathir was chairman from February 2016 to February 2020.
UKSB has also named other politicians from various parties for accepting political funding, among them is also another former prime minister, Muhyiddin Yassin (Bersatu), health minister Khairy Jamaluddin (Umno), Shahril Hamdan (Umno), Chan Kong Choy (MCA), Ong Ka Chuan (MCA) and others.
