Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had permitted the use of cheques from charitable organisation Yayasan Akalbudi to pay for his personal credit card bills and had also allowed the stamping of his signatures on the cheques, his former executive secretary told the court today.
Testifying as the 90th prosecution witness, Major Mazlina Mazlan @ Ramly today testified in her former boss Zahid’s trial over alleged criminal breach of trust, corruption and money laundering.
Mazlina said that she recalled Zahid telling her in 2016 in the Home Ministry’s office to stop using cheques from Yayasan Akalbudi’s account to pay for his personal credit card bills, as the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) was investigating the matter.
“The last time I used Yayasan Akalbudi’s cheques to pay credit cards was in early 2016. As far as I remember, at that time, Datuk Seri ordered me not to use Yayasan Akalbudi cheques anymore to pay for credit cards as it was said that the MACC has started conducting investigations.
“I did not ask further. I was asked to pay for the credit cards using cash,” she said in her witness statement today, later explaining that she had received the cash from Zahid to pay for subsequent credit card statements.
So often the mighty are brought down by the humble truth from those they got used to treating as doormats along the way.
From the leader of UMNO’s lowly secretary we now know that he knew perfectly well from his own mouth that raiding a ‘foundation’ funded by ‘donations’ from businessmen seeking favours to pay off his credit cards was wrong.
The moment he knew the MACC was investigating he told her to stop using open cheques from the ‘foundation’ signed off by him and to pay off the credit cards with bags of cash instead!
Sadly, 60 years of untrammelled power and so many opportunities to abuse it have allowed this UMNO party to descend into a criminal organisation as the trials of its past and present leader have exposed plainly to the public.
Yet, UMNO allow them to remain in office and remain as representatives, along with so many other exposed crooks within their ranks.
At the same time their members have seen fit to go around claiming that the two years in which they were out of office (hands pulled out of the cookie jars for so short a while) have allowed UMNO to ‘clean’ their party!
There has not been a single expulsion or a single word of criticism by UMNO against its crooked MPs. So take it from the facts – this party is still a criminal organisation of lying crooks.
They lost the election so they seized back control by a coup in order to continue their criminal activities and although they preach racist policies they serve no one but themselves.