More information has begun to emerge relating to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of RM believed to have been misappropriated from Maika Holdings Berhad and it mainly points to one person, its former CEO Dato Sri Vell Paari who was appointed in 1999. Son of Tun Samy Vellu (who was the brainchild of this enterprise that was supposed to uplift Indians in the country).
Allegations are now surfacing that points to Vell Paari using the money belonging to the 66,000 shareholders mainly poor Indians who trusted his father and MIC – like it was his personal bank account.
Documents exposed by Sarawak Report showed approximately RM1.6 million made out to companies which Vell Paari had interests in such as Tamil Nesan (where he was Chairman) and Pyramid Saimira Theatre Chain (M) Sdn Bhd (PSTC) and OKA Motors, among others.
Vell Paari became the chairman of PSTC, which had been instrumental in securing the distribution rights for “Sivaji The Boss” – Malaysia’s highest gross Tamil movie in 2007, which is said to have raked in US$2.435 million (RM7.9 million). PSTC had received a total of RM1.3 million from Maika’s subsidiary Maika Intellectual Resources Sdn Bhd (MIR) to buy the rights.
However, where is the board of directors approval and money trail to show where the profits went, did it go to Maika or PSTC?
I was fortunate enough to be privy to some of the documents that was revealed by Sarawak Report. Many of the transactions were so shoddy, even the paper trail of it looks questionable e.g. a payment voucher supposedly issued by MIR to PSTC was done by manually cancelling Maika’s company name on the official receipt and replacing it with the MIR’s company chop. Bear in mind that Maika was a RM100 million company, not a kedai runcit. But it seems that is how things were done in Maika Holdings Berhad.
In the documents I sighted, aside from PTSC being one of the companies that monies from Maika were channelled to, OKA Motor Co based in Perth, Australia was another.
On 24 August 2011, The Malay Mail published an article on various investigations by the Australian authorities carried out against OKA Australia, for misappropriation of millions of RM, missing accounting files and “stolen” intellectual property manuals valued at RM80 million. These files contained trade information for the manufacture of all-terrain trucks and tour buses.
Vell Paari, who controlled OKA through Reymer Pty Ltd, denied any responsibility that time saying that he was mainly in Kuala Lumpur. However, there were claims that funds of the company had also been mysteriously siphoned out of Australia to a private account in Europe.
Another unexplained payment revealed the case of one payment of RM33,500 to a law firm, Sree Harry as a result of a settlement involving a private action taken by Vell Paari’s mother, which had nothing to do with Maika?
Tamil Nesan was also a beneficiary of mysterious payments as no details of the payments were provided in the receipts issued by Maika.
Vell Paari has now come out claiming that he had channelled funds into the Maika to help it stay afloat and any payments made to him were merely refunds. If what he says is true, no CEO of a multi-million ringgit company would do such a thing. The company was not his family business and even so, there is no justification for him to being a “Samaritan” to Maika by lending the so-called millions.
Vell Paari also maintained his innocence amidst this scandal in a recent statement saying the allegations surfaced are just tactics to extort money (RM3.5 million he claims) from him. He said he has identified the perpetrators and would disclose their identities to the relevant authorities. If you’re really being blackmailed, did you lodge a police report?
What seems to be a letter dated 15 February 2019 shows Vell Paari resigning from his Secretary-General post and also as a member of MIC’s central working committee due to “other commitments”. He rubbished claims that he resigned as a result of the Sarawak Report article. He said receipt of his resignation on 15 February was proof. If the Sarawak Report is wrong then why are you resigning now? After all these years when you held on to power?
Also Vell Paari banged the drum about a huge sum in salaries owed as a CEO, but accounts showing that he had received a nice “severance” package of RM220,000 by G Team Resources upon the disposal of Maika.
Vell Paari’s excesses are legendary. Let us not forget how generous he had been with his one employee, namely his “personal secretary” K. Sujata. In an inquest into her death in 2009, he made known very publicly that he had serviced part of a loan for condominium to the tune of RM220,000, being a guarantor for her loan to buy a Mazda RX8 (priced at over RM200,000 at that time), and even funded her higher studies at the diploma and master’s level? Where did all this money come from?
Maika bled dry making mysterious payments to companies owned by Vell Paari and more evidence is being uncovered. This itself warrants a large-scale investigation by the MACC. Too many people have suffered from the corruption and greed of few individuals.
Justice must be served!
“Fight Injustice Everywhere”
Dato’ Sri Sanjeevan Ramakrishnan