KUALA LUMPUR, 13 February 2004 — Malaysia’s land minister was arrested yesterday and charged with corruption for shepherding a deal to sell millions of ringgit worth of shares his government agency owned. He pleaded innocent.
Land and Cooperative Development Minister Kasitah Gaddam’s case is the second high-profile anti-corruption arrest this week in a crackdown ordered by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and is the first time a minister has been charged with corruption in Malaysia since the fall of former deputy leader Anwar Ibrahim in 1998.
Kasitah pleaded innocent to two counts of corruption in the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court involving the sale of shares in a plantation company held by the Sabah Land Development Board, which he chairs.
Kasitah was released on bail of 1 million ringgit ($263,000) and ordered to surrender his passport. Magistrate Rosenani Abdul Rahman agreed to send the case to the High Court for its next hearing. No date was set.
On the first count, prosecution documents presented to the court allege Kasitah “took part in corrupt acts” by using his position as chairman of the state land body to approve the sale of 16.8 million shares it held in SAPI Plantations to Briskmark Enterprise. Kasitah was promised 3.6 million of the SAPI Plantations shares to arrange the sale, prosecutors allege.
The second count accuses Kasitah of deceiving the rest of the board into approving the sale.
Zawawi Nordin, deputy director general of the Anti-Corruption Agency that arrested Kasitah, valued the illegal transaction at up to 40 million ringgit ($10.5 million), the Bernama national news agency reported.
Kasitah’s lawyer, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, said: “We’ve got a very good chance of defending this case.”
The Sabah Land Development Board is in charge of government land development projects in Sabah state on Borneo Island. It is linked to the national farming cooperative body Felda, which is the largest owner of plantation land in Malaysia, producing mostly palm oil.
Felda is administered by Kasitah’s ministry. Kasitah is from Sabah.
Kasitah remains in the Cabinet, although Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak indicated Abdullah may soon remove him.
“Generally speaking, if the minister has been charged, then his position might be under review,” Najib was quoted as saying by Bernama. “But it is up to the prime minister to decide.”
Prime Minister Abdullah said Kasitah would not immediately be removed from the Cabinet. “I have to think about that,” he told reporters during a visit to the southern state of Johor.
Kasitah’s arrest came two days after another high-profile anti-corruption case, although they are not believed to be linked. On Tuesday, Eric Chia Eng Hock, the former tycoon at the center of Malaysia’s biggest financial scandal, was charged with criminal breach of trust in connection 76.4 million ringgit ($20 million) missing from government-controlled Perwaja Steel, which almost collapsed in 1996 under debts and losses of more than 10 billion ringgit ($2.7 billion).
Since succeeding Mahathir Mohamad, Abdullah has made fighting corruption and improving corporate governance — issues that have tarnished Malaysia’s reputation for years — a central policy plank as he prepares to call elections.
