KOTA KINABALU: Four company managers, including a mother and son, received hefty fines for separate charges of fraudulently using as genuine, two forged GiatMara Malaysia acknowledgment certificates, which were included in separate appendixes to the State Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry (MAFI) for the 1 Azam 2012 programs for the purpose of claims.
Sessions Court judge Ishak Bakri imposed the fine on Alfaizan Ahmad, 30, and his mother Nusiah Atang @ Attang, 64, Hamizan Jamian, 32, and Rika Husaini, 34, after they pleaded guilty to each of their charges under Section 471 of the Penal Code.
The offence carries a maximum two-year jail or a fine, or both, upon conviction.
Alfaizan, Hamizan and Rika were each fined a total of RM12,000, in default, four months’ jail for four counts of committing the offences while Nusiah, who had two similar charges, received a total of RM6,000 fine, in default, two months’ imprisonment.
The four accused, who were represented by counsel Hairul V. Othman, were fined RM3,000, in default, one month’s jail each for their charges.
In the first to the fourth charges, Alfaizan admitted to have dishonestly submitted a forged certificate as genuine for the Beads Handcraft Course to the state MAFI for the said program at Golden Centre in Putatan between October 22 and 30, 2012.
As for Hamizan and Rika, they had pleaded guilty to their four counts of dishonestly using another forged certificate as genuine for Food Handling Course at Alamesra Plaza Permain, off Jalan Sulaman and at University Plaza, off Jalan Sulaman, respectively, between October 22 and October 30, 2012.
Meanwhile, Nusiah pleaded guilty to her two charges of committing a similar offence using the same certificate as used by Hamizan and Rika at Kampung Rasak Darat in Kota Marudu on the same date.
Deputy public prosecutor Kevin Morais told the court that in 2012, the federal government had channeled a total of RM71 million through the Performance Malaysia Delivery Unit (PEMANDU) to the state MAFI for the 1Azam programs.
Morais also said the ministry had held 1Azam technical committee meetings for them to vet through the applications. Then after going through all the applications and approved by the technical committees, the ministry was requested to apply immediate exception of tender because the project needed to start immediately and done within that year.
The prosecution further explained that on April 13, 2012, Acceptance Letters were issued by MAFI to these four companies to do various trainings and courses to generate incomes under 1Azam, amounting to RM7.5 million.
Morais said investigations by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) conducted on the said companies revealed that several claims sent by the companies to the state MAFI were forged.
In pleading for light sentences, Hairul urged the court not to impose custodial sentence on his clients, taking into account that all of them were first-time offenders and by pleading guilty to the charges, they had save the court’s time.
In reply, Morais submitted a total of RM132,499.56 which had been taken from several accounts, three out of four companies in this case.
He also submitted that during the investigation, one of the accused persons had obstructed MACC personnel by preventing their entry into one of the managers’ companies. A report has been lodged against the owner of the company in respect of his conduct.
The court also ordered for the RM132,499.56 to be confiscated, being the property of the Malaysian government.