Malaysia's ex-navy chief pleads not guilty to charges in ship scandal
Opposition party Muda says the charges do not address issues raised in parliamentary report
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A former Malaysian navy chief, who was also previously a high-ranking official in Boustead Naval Shipyard (BNS), yesterday pleaded not guilty to three charges of criminal breach of trust in connection with a scandal involving the delayed delivery of littoral combat ships (LCS).
Ahmad Ramli Mohd Nor, 78, was charged with approving payments of RM21.08 million (S$6.5 million) to three Singapore-based companies without the agreement of the company's board of directors.
One of the charges against the former BNS managing director involved a payment of about RM13.5 million to Setaria Holdings that was allegedly made without the BNS board's approval. Two other charges involved payments of RM1.36 million to JSD Corp and RM6.18 million to Sousmarin Armada, purportedly without the BNS board's approval.
All three offences were alleged to have taken place between July 2010 and May 2011.
Ahmad Ramli was BNS managing director from 2005 until 2019. He was the navy chief from October 1996 until his retirement in 1998.
The three companies had no business dealings with BNS, a source from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) said.
The scandal over the six warships, meant to be used to patrol Malaysia's shoreline, broke on Aug 4 after the bipartisan Public Accounts Committee (PAC) which reports to Parliament revealed that RM1.4 billion in government allocation for the project had been used for other purposes.
The MACC said last week it had completed investigations into the delay in the LCS project, which cost a total of RM9 billion.
The project was commissioned in 2011 without open tender, with BNS scheduled to deliver the first vessel in 2019.
So far, RM6 billion of the RM9 billion has been paid out, but none of the ships has been delivered.
There is public clamour to bring criminal proceedings against officials who approved and poorly managed the project.
Senior Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said last week that the first warship will now be ready only "in one or two years".
Opposition Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) committee member Lim Wei Jiet yesterday said the charges against Ahmad Ramli did not address the issues raised by the parliamentary committee. He said the three companies mentioned in court were not mentioned in the PAC report.
"If we look more deeply, it is clear that the main leakages and misuse identified by PAC are not reflected in the accusations against Tan Sri Ahmad Ramli today," he said.
"Muda advises MACC to ensure that the real masterminds behind the LCS scandal are accused and tried in court. Let's not make one of the officials a scapegoat for only a small transaction, with the intention of obscuring the public's mind that all those guilty in the LCS scandal have already been brought to justice."
About the case
Malaysia's multibillion-dollar navy ship scandal goes back to more than a decade ago, when six littoral combat ships were commissioned to be built in 2011.
The contract was awarded - without open tender - to Boustead Naval Shipyard, which promised to start delivering the vessels from 2019, with the last one due next year.
To date, RM6 billion (S$1.86 billion) of the RM9 billion contract has already been paid out, but not even the designs for those ships have been completed.
The long-delayed vessels have now ignited a blame game in Malaysia's Parliament, threatening ruling party Umno's hopes of holding an early election this year and winning it.
