DEIG is clean so far, says MACC

Darul Ehsan Investment Group (DEIG) has not breached any laws under the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009.

“To date, the MACC has not found any wrongdoing by the DEIG under the Act, and the commission has no plans to take any action against them,” Selangor MACC director, Datuk Simi Abdul Ghani said.

“However, if we receive any information that indicates grounds for wrongdoing, then MACC will be ready to act in accordance with the law,” he said in a media statement today.

He also denied that MACC had never taken any action in the matter.

He said the commission had interviewed several witnesses and took several documents since the inception of DEIG was announced on Aug 19.

Regarding the RM2.5 million zakat contribution by the state investment arm, Simi said MACC had been conducting investigations since July and is still ongoing.

Various parties before this had called on the MACC to probe on alleged abuse of power in the transfer of assets from Menteri Besar Incorporated (MBI) to DEIG, supposedly worth RM30 billion.

DEIG debuted with a bang during the state assembly sitting on Aug 19, marked by an explosive spat between the current Selangor Menteri Besar, Mohamed Azmin Ali and his predecessor, Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim.

Abdul Khalid had questioned the setting up of DEIG, considering MBI already fulfilled the role that the former is supposed to play.

Mohamed Azmin countered with the fact that some of Selangor's assets are in debt, and this new investment arm, wholly owned by MBI, would help turn things around.

News of DEIG was met with a flurry of negative comments from both sides of the political divide, especially when it was made known that the entity did not have to table its financial reports to the state assembly, and is only answerable to its board of directors.

Mohamed Azmin had also said DEIG has yet to begin operations and would not be involved in any transaction until 2016.