The question is why it has taken Mahathir more than a week to make such a statement, when the stock market and the country was swirling with rumours about police investigations of Daim and his corporate cronies as well as his impending arrest?
Last Friday, the Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, when denying “persistent rumours” about Daim’s arrest, made the cryptic remark: “What Daim does in the future, I do not know but for the time being, Daim is not a subject of police investigation.”
Thus, when Mahathir said that Daim is not going to be arrested, is he giving Daim a clean bill of health that the latter would not be prosecuted, even for the RM1.88 billion Time dotCom IPO bailout scandal in the criminal misuse of Pensions Trust Fund (KWAP) and Employees Provident Fund (EPF) when he was Finance Minister?
Malaysians, and in particular the 800,000 civil servants and the 9.7 million EPF contributors are entitled to know whether Mahathir fully endorsed the use of KWAP and EPF in the RM1.88 billion Time dotCom IPO bailout, where KWAP acquired the lion’s share of 48 per cent of Time dotCom’s IPO issue of 571.7 million shares or 63.9% of the unsubscribed IPO portion of 428.83 million shares, ploughing some six per cent of its total funds by taking up 273.86 million shares of the unsubscribed portion of the Time dotCom IPO at the cost of RM903.74 million - and incurring a loss of some RM330 million.
The three government-linked funds and agencies of KWAP, EPF and Danaharta have collectively lost the mind-boggling sums of RM530 million in the past three months since Time dotCom's public debut - a most unforgivable and unpardonable mismanagement of public funds in taking part in the bailout of Time dotCom IPO for the benefit of Renong and Tan Sri Halim Saad.
Although the EPF, KWAP and Danaharta took up a walloping 76.14% of the entire Time dotCom offer of 572 million shares at RM3.30 per share, or RM1.44 billion out of the total IPO offer of RM1.88 billion, if all the identities of the takers of the balance of the IPO are known, they will mostly be other government-linked funds and agencies which can total as high as 90 to 95 per cent of the entire Time dotCom IPO.
The misuse of government-linked funds and agencies in the Time dotCom IPO bailout are criminal offences, involving the violation of the statutory duties of the KWAP and EPF, the unlawful investment of KWAP and EPF monies, criminal negligence, criminal breach of trust and criminal misapplication of public funds.
In giving Daim a clean bill of health, is Mahathir giving Daim immunity from prosecution or fully exonerating Daim from any criminal wrongdoing in the Time dotCom IPO bail-out scandal involving government-linked funds and agencies, and if so, who are criminally responsible - or is this another “heinous crime without criminals”?
(23/6/2001)