THE Malaysian middlemen allegedly involved in the Mara corruption scandal in Australia should be tracked down and investigated, a DAP lawmaker said today.

The Australian authorities charged Boon Lye Teen with bribing Malaysian officials, said Seputeh MP Teresa Kok.

The scandal involved the sale of a multi-million-dollar apartment complex called Dudley House in Melbourne to Mara Inc Sdn Bhd.

Australian newspapers The Age and Sydney Morning Herald exposed the scandal in 2013. 

The Australian authorities said two Malaysian “middlemen” allegedly received or were promised RM14.25 million as a bribe, said Kok. 

The bribe was to influence a public official in order to obtain or retain business namely in the sale of the property, she added. 

“It will not be hard for the Malaysian authorities to track these two middlemen,” said Kok, adding that the Australian authorities have already named them in official court documents.

Boon was charged on July 9 with four counts of falsifying documents related to the sale of the property along with bribing Malaysian officials.

Five years ago, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the price of the property had been inflated by A$4.75 million (RM14.25 million) to provide kickbacks to a group of Malaysian officials.

According to the court documents filed at the Melbourne magistrates’ court, it was alleged that the agreed sale price for the property was A$17.85 million.

But it was later sold for A$22.6 million with A$4.75 million paid to Malaysian officials.

In March 2016, then Mara chairman Annuar Musa handed over documents related to the property’s purchase to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.

A year later on November 2017, then rural and regional development minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob was reported as saying MACC was almost done with the investigation and that the agency was waiting for a report from the Australian authorities regarding the transactions.

“However, four years later, MACC has not taken any action on the Malaysian officials named in the transaction,” Kok said. 

“As the Perikatan Nasional prime minister has repeatedly said the PN government is serious about wiping out corruption in the country, it is high time for it to walk the talk by taking action against the Malaysian officials involved in the scandal.” – August 6, 2020.