By Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjong, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Sunday, August 29, 1993:
DAP calls on Securities Commission to issue a full statement of its investigations into the Union Paper shares scandal and to name the other eleven short sellers apart from the Tan Sri Ibrahim Mohamed
I confirm that when I mentioned in Parliament last month that a prominent Tan Sri was involved in the Union Paper Holdings Bhd shares scandal, I was referring to Tan Sri Ibrahim Mohamed, chief executive officer of Uniphoenix Corp Bhd and Damansara Realty (former Kesang Pomet Bhd Chairman.
Tan Sri Ibrahim was fined RM500,000 by the Shah Alam Sessions Court yesterday after pledging guilty to short-selling 825,000 Union Paper shares worth RM8,322,875.62 at SJ Securities Sdn Bhd a stockbroking firm in Subang Jaya, on June 16 for an offence under section 41(1) of the Securities Industry Act 1983.
The Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange had announced that there had been 12 short-sellers involving 2.49 million Union Paper shares would be brought to justice.
The Malaysian investing public have a right to know when the other 11 short-sellers involving 2.49 million Union Paper shares would be brought to justice.
In this connection, the public wants to know the status of the investigations of the Securities Commission into the Union Paper shares scandal, as to whether the Attorney-general regards them as an utter waste of time and public funds.
This is because the Attorney-General, Tan Sri Abu Talib, has refused to grant consent to the Securities Commission to prosecute persons for violation of the short-selling offences under the Security Industry Act.
The reason given by the Tan Sri Abu Talib was that prosecution had already been initiated against me one of the persons named in the submission by the Securities Coimmission – referring clearly to Tan Sri Ibrahim Mohamed.
The refusal by Tan Sri Abu Talib Othman to sanction the prosecution of Tan Sri Ibrahim Mohamed is correct as a person cannot be charged twice for the same offences, but this has not yet requested for sanction from the Attorney-General for the prosecution of other person yet.
This raises the question why the Attorney-General had not given consent to the Securities Commission to prosecute others for short-selling apart from Tan Sri Ibrahim Mohamed!
Zainun Ali has said that evidence of insider trading and market manipulation had been uncovered in the probe and into the Union Paper shares scandal. Why hasn’t anyone been prosecuted for the offences of insider trading yet?
DAP calls on the Securities Commission to issue a full statement of its investigations into the Union Paper shares scandal, naming all the 12 short-seller, to demonstrate that it is serious in wanting to establish the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange as a fair, orderly and transparent market place and not a casino.
The Securities Commission’s statement should also ket the public know the result of investigation as to whether the KLSE had acted responsible and fairly as in suspending the Union Paper as well as in declaring that Union Paper shares had been cornered.
The image and position of the Securities Commission would suffer irreparable damage if it is only playing second fiddle to the Registry of Companies when Malaysians have been given the impression that the Securities Commission is the highest regulatory agency in the securities industry.