Zarul Ahmad Mohd Zulkifli, senior executive director at Consortium Zenith Construction Sdn Bhd, said the claims, made in several blog posts by Raja Petra, were “nefarious” and “pure fiction”.
He said if he had been accused of corruption, anti-graft authorities would have already charged him in court.
“This case was investigated and completed way before the change of government. There was plenty of time to level charges against me or anyone else alleged to have received bribes,” he said in a statement.
Claiming that the posts were “clearly concocted to deceive and defame me, my company and the Penang government”, he said even Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had called them a lie.
He said last year, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had held him for 11 days to investigate him for corruption. He also claimed that his entire company had been called in for questioning, spending 40 days in and out of the MACC office.
“MACC even hired external consultants to see if we were fair in our pricing. And clearly, given the magnitude of our project, our prices were fair, justified and above board.”
In his blog posts, Raja Petra had referred to MACC investigation papers into the tunnel and roads project, said to cost about RM6.3 billion.
According to the posts, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng and several state executive councillors were implicated in the investigation.
Lim yesterday slammed the blog posts as “ridiculous lies”, adding that MACC itself had lodged a police report against the blogger.
It was reported early last year that Zenith paid RM22 million to two individuals to close a graft probe into the project.
The two individuals were supposed to do “consultancy work in regulatory compliance and risk management” for the project.
MACC arrested five individuals, including Zarul, and recorded over 120 statements. However, no charges were made.
The 7.2km undersea tunnel will connect George Town’s Pangkor Road and Bagan Ajam in Butterworth. Construction is expected to start after 2030 if the project is found feasible.
The three main roads meanwhile stretch from Air Itam to the Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu Expressway (5.7km); Tanjung Bungah to Teluk Bahang (10.53km); and Jalan Pangkor-Gurney Drive junction to Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu Expressway (4.1km). The roads project has been given all necessary approval.