KUALA LUMPUR: Embattled Mara chairman Tan Sri Annuar Musa denied being involved in any discussions in the purchase of commercial sponsorship packages by Universiti Kuala Lumpur (UniKL) and Pelaburan Mara Bhd (PMB) from the Kelantan football team which is also known as The Red Warriors (TRW).
Annuar who has been asked to go on leave as Mara chairman and PMB since January, said the decision to buy the RM500,000 commercial package by UniKL and RM200,000 by PMB, was made by the administration without referring to him.
“The discussion was carried out on a commercial basis and did not involve me. I did not direct anyone to use the funds. Claims that I had forced the use of funds from Mara to assist the Kelantan football team is baseless,” he told reporters after giving his statement to the Mara Internal Audit at the Mara headquarters, here yesterday.
Annuar said the one-hour session to record his statement was chaired by Mara Internal Audit committee chairman Prof Emeritus Datuk Dr Abu Azam Md Yassin and held from 11am.
He said the commercial package from TRW which was bought by UniKL and PMB was priced much lower than what was offered to others.
“The package bought by UniKL was worth RM1 million but they paid only RM500,000 while PMB’s RM200,000 package was equally worth it compared with commercial advertisements in newspapers. In fact PMB got the best deal because the TRW players were wearing jerseys that displayed the PMB logo for an extra year,” he said. — Bernama