I didn’t know what bonds were, says former GM

Former Port Klang Authority general manager Datin O.C. Phang told the High Court here that she did not know what bonds were.

Questioned by lead prosecutor DPP Datuk Tun Abd Majid Hamzah here, the 65-year-old homemaker said: “I don’t understand (about bonds). I asked my accountant, ‘do you know about bonds’, but he said he also did not know.”

She was the 14th prosecution witness testifying in the trial of former Transport Minister Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik who is accused of cheating the Government by misleading the Cabinet on a land acquisition involving the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ).

Phang said that during the course of the PKFZ project, she did not know a land evaluation, at RM25psf, involved the issuance of bonds.

“We did not talk about bonds (in our meetings). It did not come up at all,” she said.

Phang also admitted to only knowing what bonds were in January when an investigating officer, who started a probe into the PKFZ scandal, told her.

Valuation and Property Services Department (JPPH) deputy director-general Datuk Mani Usilappan had previously testified that a RM25psf price consideration (for the land) could be used when read together with the 10-year repayment period with a yearly 6% interest and a 5% deposit. Nett present value (NPV) of the land had been fixed at RM21psf.

In the sale and purchase agreement, the terms agreed to included the land being purchased at RM25psf with a 7.5% interest rate for 15 years, with a 10% deposit. Payment was to only start in the fifth year of the loan tenure.

Dr Ling has claimed trial to an amended principal charge of deceiving the Government by not exposing to the Cabinet an additional interest rate of 7.5% annually in the land purchase for the PKFZ project.

He faces two optional charges of cheating the Government by not exposing to the Cabinet facts pertaining to the interest rate, and deceiving it into believing that facts on the land purchase at RM25psf and 7.5% interest were certified and agreed to by JPPH when he knew that there was no such consent.

He is said to have committed the offences at the Prime Minister’s office in Putrajaya between Sept 25 and Nov 6, 2002.

The hearing continues today.

Source : The Star

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