BUSINESSMAN Tee Kien Moon told the court in Rosmah Mansor’s corruption trial today that he was not misled by her former aide, Rizal Mansor, in preparing a consultancy agreement for a solar hybrid project for Sarawak schools. 

Tee, who is the 20th witness in the trial, said Rizal had acted consistently when asked by defence lawyers if he had felt misled into preparing the agreement for Jepak Holding Sdn Bhd, which was awarded the contract.

Rosmah’s lead counsel, Jagjit Singh, asked Tee, who is also known as Lawrence Tee, if he was misled since Rizal had frequently used the titles “ma’am” and “Datin Seri” when asking him to prepare the agreement.

Jagjit: I put it to you, in the totality as your evidence, you were misled by Rizal in the role you were involved in, based on the perception that he was special officer to Datin Seri (Rosmah) and the name-dropping of “ma’am”, “Datin” and “PM”.

Tee: No. I don’t think I was misled. His behaviour has been consistent since the first time we met.

Tee said he was unsure if Rosmah had played any role in instructing the preparation of the agreement, but he did so because he understood Rizal to be in a “strong” position as he was then Rosmah’s special officer.

Yesterday, Tee told the Kuala Lumpur High Court that he had prepared a consultancy agreement for the solar hybrid project for schools in Sarawak after being told that the accused had wanted him to do so.

Tee said he prepared a four-paged consultancy agreement between Lucky Victory Limited, a Taiwanese company, and Jepak Holdings Sdn Bhd based on samples taken from the internet.

Jagjit asked Lawrence if he had ever asked for remuneration from Jepak, Lucky Victory or Rizal for preparing the agreement, to which he said no. 

In the trial’s opening statement, lead public prosecutor Gopal Sri Ram said the agreement was a “sham agreement meant to disguise the payment and to conceal the name of the true recipient of the money”.

During re-examination by Sri Ram, Lawrence reiterated that he had not received a single sen for his role in preparing the agreement.

Rosmah, 69, faces three corruption charges, one of which is for soliciting RM187.5 million from Saidi as inducement to help Jepak Holdings secure the solar hybrid project in Sarawak.

She is also accused of receiving bribes totalling RM6.5 million from Saidi in 2016 and 2017.

The trial continues tomorrow before judge Mohamed Zaini Mazlan with Rizal expected to take the stands. – September 8, 2020.