‘Sabah Watergate’ suspect to pay RM30mil compound

KOTA KINABALU: One of the four key suspects involved in the state’s biggest graft probe dubbed the Sabah Watergate scandal has been given a discharge not amounting to acquittal (DNAA) by the special corruption court here.

Teo Chee Kong (pic), the former Sabah Water Department deputy director, was ordered by the Special Corruptions Court here to pay a RM30mil compound following the DNAA yesterday.

Judge Abu Bakar Manat made the order after the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) prosecuting team decided not to proceed with the case.

MACC Legal and Prosecuting Division senior director Datuk Faridz Gohim Abdullah said the compound is a form of punitive punishment.

Teo, 57, was facing a total of 146 money laundering charges involving RM32.93mil. He was first charged in December 2017.Faridz said the act of issuing the compound was a success on the prosecution’s part, and that the compound does not affect the charges and ongoing cases involving other suspects in the scandal.

Apart from Teo, the cases against three others are still ongoing with all the accused granted bail.

They are former Sabah Water Department director Awang Mohd Tahir Mohd Talib, 59, his wife Fauziah Piut, 56, and state Finance Ministry adviser and retired deputy director of the department Lim Lam Beng, 67.

They were slapped with separate charges at a Sessions Court for money laundering involving RM61.5mil on Dec 29, 2016.

The corruption case came to light after raids were made at the office and home of the director and his deputy on Oct 22, 2016.

Investigators were said to have found RM45mil in cash in the director’s house and some RM3mil at the office of the other.

There were also jewellery, designer handbags and other possessions seized from these raids.

It was reported earlier in the probe that graftbusters believed that the suspects were siphoning RM3.3bil in funds meant for water projects in Sabah since 2010 through a network of companies linked to their families.

The MACC recorded the statements of 200 witnesses in its probe during which it had seized or frozen some RM114.5mil in cash, bank accounts, unit trusts and other assets within and outside the country.