Exposed: MACC adviser bribed a Ministry Sec-Gen!

Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam made a press remark expressing his satisfaction to explanation by Attorney General Tan Sri Gani Patail to 30 members of the board and panel members of MACC.

There are five board of advisors, panel and committee running MACC. Read back posting here.

Gani gave a detailed explanation of his Haj pilgrimage in Mecca with his family which philantropist Tan Sri Robert Phang claimed Gani was seen together with Shahidan Shafie, who was said to be close to former Malaysia Airlines chairman Tan Sri Tajuddin Ramli.

The actually happening will be posted in the future. It will be embarassing to many but let's wait out.

Ramon was lambasted by Robert Phang for his remarks. He was accused of breaching the confidentiality of the meeting.

Is this man, who recently was seen as friendly and had donated money to DAP and had been showered with accolades as philantropist and community leader, really a purveyor of good against evil of power abuse and corruption?

Read on. It is interesting inside story with a great cliff hanger. I promise.

Offensive

For few months, Robert Phang had been on a streak of vocal diatribes against MACC, Attorney General Chambers, and Police institutions using the cases involving MAS, Tajuddin Ramli, former CID Chief Dato Ramli Yusof, lawyer Rosli Dahalan, and allegations by former KL CID Dato Mat Zain Ibrahim as issues.

It is undeniably the issues fought hard for the last few years by Malaysia Today's Raja Petra Kamaruddin and new Dato and blogger, Din Merican. [Congratulations is in order.]

The basis Robert Phang used to whacked at Ramon did not really bat an eyelid. It is a reaction and merely to sustain his attack mode against the AG.

He called Gani a rogue. One wonder who taught this Chinaman the word rogue?

Front

Tan Sri Robert Phang Miow Sin is the Chairman of Social Care Foundation. That way he has the platform to claim himself as philantropist and look dignified.

My life experiance dealing with Chinese businessmen tells me to be cautious of characters making such claims. He is likely to be a taiko or gangster or in crude language, a crook.

Neither is the newspaper claim that he is a community leader any true. His late boss was a community leader in East Malaysia and amongst the Chinese businessmen but not him.

Nor is he the MACC Commissioner or Adviser as he claim himself to be in Sabah. Read MCA Youth chief and Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong tweeted on Dec 15, 2010 when it was announced that he was off the hook by MACC:

“Glad to hear that MACC has finally cleared my name & nikabdulaziz 4 the separate graft claims. Truth has prevailed after the thorough investigation by MACC. Thankful to MACC Chairman & Dep Chairman as well as Advisory Main Panel (except for 1 self-proclaimed Advisory Panel – he is only a sub com member) for carrying out their duties professionally. I urge those irresponsible ppl stop spreading lies with malicious info 4their personal political gains.”

That self-proclaimed advisor and sub-committee member is Robert Phang and he is only on MACC's committee on prevention of corruption. That's the fifth in the pecking order of importance. Read our earlier posting on MACC here.

Why would someone who is neither an Adviser nor Commissioner of MACC goes around by that title?

Lunner Loh-Bird

Before moving on, let's rephrase something. Our subject's name will be referred as Phang Miow Sin and the short name will be Phang or Tan Sri Phang. No need to mention his orang putih name Robert.

Aisay Chinaman, have some jati diri. How to take seriously as Robert when you pronounced it as Loh-Bird.

All these claims are nothing but to hide the his past background. It is not so much about his humble beginning as a Wearne Brothers car salesman. It was his activities after that which he need to cover.

His luck as a car salesman changed for the better when Dato Harris Salleh turned up at his showroom one day and grew fond of this sweet talking salesman.

Harris now 79 was the former Sabah Chief Minister from Berjasa that managed to topple the legendary Sabah freedom fighter Tun Mustapha. He held the position between 1976 to 1985 before being toppled later by Tan Sri Pairin Kitingan of PBS.

Harris brought Phang to be his runner, collector, go-between or whatever name to be called to be the link between him and the late late Tan Sri Datuk Amar Wee Boon Ping. What else could a lowly educated salesman do but be a lunner?

Wee is the real community leader, not Phang. This timber tycoon believed to hail from Sibu was the one of the first Chinese member and financier of the dayak-based political party SNAP. SNAP was a BN component party until ejected in 2004 and joined Pakatan Rakyat in April 2010.

However, Wee's son Datuk Wee Kok Tiong is with SUPP and is expected to run for the Padungan state seat in the next Sarawak election.

The late Wee's monumental contribution is in his leadership of the The Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia (ACCCIM). He managed to established Unico Holdings in the 70s.

It was the Chinese community reaction to the emergence of new Bumiputera entrepreneours in corporate scene. Chinese were pooling their money into saving mechanism and emulating PNB and ASN. Read passages of this book here.

The indication of that link between the late Wee and Harris can be established in newspaper report on the lawsuit by current ACCCIM President Tan Sri William Cheng Heng Jem and the ACCCIM Deputy President Datuk Lim Kok Cheong against its honorary Advisor and seven others over a piece of land in Sabah.

Read the reports of Harris taking the stand here, here and here. The argument in defence of Wee can be found here.

This was Sabah of the go-go era. There was abundant money to be made if one find the correct connection.

Phang was a smooth talker and networker. He was building connections in Sabah. Along the way, he made money for himself. There is those typical businesses in projects and contracts. Maybe some trading opportunities here and there making use of his connections and network.

There was one activity of him that made him reknown in close circles.

Phang can fix

Phang was known then in Sabah as Mr Fix-It.

Don't say Government was never concern for corruption. There were always concerned but there was always leak in the system that enable cheats, corrupts and power abusers to get away. Phang was one conduit for such personality to save themselves.

Over the years, he had befriended many important and powerful people. Maybe by carrying out their errands, being good host or being generous to powerful but financial insufficient blokes.

One person he was closed to the former Attorney General and current Suhakam Chairman, Tan Sri Abu Talib Othman. He was able to go in and out of the AG office without much hindrance.

The suspicion is that he had contacts inside that enable him to fix anyone in Sabah having problems with the predecessor to MACC, the Anti Corruption Agency (ACA).

Maybe at first it was legitimate arranging of meeting between affected people to AG personnel handling cases to explain the accused side of the story. But what evolve after that, God knows.

Phang basically had free access in and out of AG office during the time of Abu Talib till the late Tan Sri Mokhtar Abdullah took over untill he was promoted to the bench.

In came Sabahan Tan Sri Gani Patail as AG on Januario 1st 2002. One of his first circular to all at the AG's Chamber was to stop Phang from roaming freely inside AG's office.

That made Phang fuming mad.

He maybe expecting another Sabahan to be more helpful to this naturalised Sabahan Chinaman from Semenanjung but it did not. This is like cutting his supply line and his rice bowl. He became vindictive and waiting for the time to punce back on Gani.

In the meanwhile, Phang was also friendly with the Pak Lah appointed and fomer Commssioner of MACC, Dato Ahmad Said Hamdan. When ACA was elevated to Commision status in 2007, Phang was invited into the "sub"-committee on corruption prevention.

But in Sabah, he goes around claiming he is MACC Commissioner for Sabah. He was the one to solve a problem to involving a Michael Chia (?).

Gani may have heard of it on his balik kampung trips. Perhaps, current Commissioner Dato Abu Kassim heard of the same rumour flying around too. His access in MACC may have been curtailed by Abu Kassim.

It is not a coincident that when Ahmad Said was not extended and replaced by Abu Kassim, Phang decided to go after both of them.

Raya T-shirt gift?

This maybe dispelled by the other side's spin master as only stories. They will claim that there is all no proof and heresay as the first line of response.

Then they will pick pockets of information from the past that doesn't tally or is wrong. Maybe pick on some weak arguments or storyline. Hopefully the whole allegations on Loh-Bird can be thrown out.

The person involve in this conspiracy against our institution maybe the ones themselves making the proclamation to throw out the whole posting.

This is despite the obvious conflict of interest. They will not have their cybertroopers defend them because they have a Professor and/or a Dato to lend credibility. A fugitive running away from the law won't do.

The story above is merely background story and it is not made up out of a figment of imagination. Sufficient money was paid on phone bill to call Sabah and Sarawak to verify and not to mentioned makan-makan with sources. Now here is the meat.

Before Hari Raya, Phang paid a visit to one Ministry Sec-Gen. Let's just use the Malay acronym KSU. So much for him being pro-DAP, he is still using his MCA card to get around.

According to our deep throat, he spoke a lot about a RM900 million contracts to be given out by that Ministry. To cut the visit story short, he told the KSU that he has a T-Shirt for him.

The KSU was puzzled. Why would someone give him a T Shirt out of the blue? Is it a golf T Shirt meant for some Golf Tournament of what? Maybe there was no golf tournament in his schedule.

Usually there is no mention of the word corruption or bribery in a corruption preposition. They are usually very subtle. In money politics, it could be called belanja makan-makan, duit awak simpan, duit buat belanja, duit terima kasih kerana tolong, and many other permuatations of seemingly legitimate names. The ignorant ones may not even realise it is corruption.

Praise to Allah, there are still honest people in this anarchic world.

This KSU wants to be clear what it was. There are gift he has to refuse. He asked Phang what it is.

Phang may have lost his head or failed in his homework. He said there is an envelope in the T-Shirt.

He was asked again what was in the envelope and Phang answered, "Duit Raya."

Instantaneously, the KSU yelled at the top of his voice, "Get out of my office!"

As he lectured Phang, he warned that he is willing to expose this and make a report to the relevant authorities.

Who is the KSU concerned? What Ministry has an upcoming RM900 million contract? Another Alcatel?

Just like what Rocky and Bigdog did on the rape issue, the KSU name will not be revealed. He will reveal himself by owning up to his threat. The bigger the fuzz by Phang and his coterie of collaborators, the earlier the revelation.

In the meanwhile, let's observe if Phang added any new issues to his long list of tantrum.

All his tantrums will be answered in due to time. All the allegations against the various individuals and institutions will be revealed as farce and well organised political propaganda.

All in good time. Mun mun loh ...