SHAH ALAM: The words monster, young boy and yb were variously used to describe former deputy prime minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi in a ledger keeping track of payouts by Ultra Kirana Sdn Bhd (UKSB).
The company’s former administrative manager, David Tan Siong Sun, said the ledger contained details of payments made by UKSB to several individuals between 2014 and 2018.
Tan, 47, said this during examination-in-chief by lead deputy public prosecutor Datuk Raja Rozela Raja Toran when he was shown the ledger in the corruption trial of Ahmad Zahid, Bernama reported.
When Raja Rozela asked Tan if he did name Ahmad Zahid in the ledger, the witness replied: “No.”
The 17th prosecution witness said that he used code names instead, like “z”, “zh”, “yb”, “young boy”, “mon” and “monster” for Ahmad Zahid.
“The reason I used the word ‘monster’ was because during (the time) I wrote in the ledger, I was eating the Mamee Monster snack,” he said.
The 15th prosecution witness, former UKSB director VK Lee, had earlier told the court that “KJ” and “bomoh” were among words recorded in the UKSB ledger which was presented in the trial.
Tan also said he used the code names because he was worried others may get access to the ledger.
Raja Rozela: (Does) anyone (else) know about the code names?
Tan: Nobody, only me.
Reading out his witness statement, Tan said he kept records of all the payments made to Ahmad Zahid from 2014 to 2018 for his personal record because the amount involved was huge.“I prepared a ledger using Microsoft Excel on my personal laptop.
“I’m not an accountant by training, so the ledger was just a simple record of money in, money out,” he said.
He added that the main entries in the ledger were the amount available for each month, the amount withdrawn and the name or nickname of the intended receiver.
“The individuals named in the ledger include ministers, politicians and government servants. Usually, I would key in the entries daily but on some busy days, I would write down on a piece of paper first before keying in the details in the ledger later,” he said.
Ahmad Zahid, 69, is facing 33 charges of receiving bribes amounting to S$13.56mil from UKSB for himself as then home minister to extend the contract of the company as the operator of the One-Stop Centre service in China and the foreign visa system (VLN), as well as to maintain the contract agreement to supply the VLN integrated system to the same company by the Home Ministry.
He was charged with another seven counts of obtaining for himself S$1,150,000, RM3mil, €15,000 and US$15,000 from the same company which has official links with his official duty.
He was charged with committing all the offences at Seri Satria, Precinct 16, Putrajaya, and Country Heights Kajang between October 2014 and March 2018.
Hearing before Justice Mohd Yazid Mustafa continues.