The report said there were abnormal payment methods, indications of “deception and collusion with the company officers”, and anomalies in payments made. It said the deceptive payments and related documents “are missing from the accounting records”.
Of the total payments of more than RM23.37 million, the audit officers could not review the supporting documents for RM8.6 million in payments as the concerned person at BNS was unable to locate them, the report said.
Invoices were issued for “technical evaluation” for the littoral combat ship project, in which Boustead Naval Shipyard was to build six frigates for the navy.
The report said two companies involved were purportedly registered in Brussels and Paris, but checks revealed no companies under those names in those cities.
The report names the companies as Setaria Holding Ltd, Sousmarin Armada Ltd, and JSD Corporation Pte Ltd, which had a Singapore address.
The report said 10 payments totaling RM13.74 million were made to Setaria Holding, four payments for a total of RM8.26 million were made to Sousmarin Armada Ltd and two payments coming up to RM1.36 million were made to JSD.
The report noted that there was a company in Malaysia that shared SAL’s name, Sousmarin Armada Sdn Bhd, which was dissolved sometime in 2012.
A director of this company was Zainab Mohd Salleh, who is involved with Alizes Marine Ltd and its offshore companies in Malta and Labuan.
Although invoices were raised in euros, payments were released in Singapore “which was abnormal and against the norms”, the audit report said.
“Since Sousmarine Armada Sdn Bhd is a company registered in Malaysia, having its office in Kuala Lumpur, the logic behind payments in a different country indicated the deception and collusion with the company officers.
“Same pattern and modus operandi were used in the case of payments to Alizes’ Marine claims,” said the report.
It added that investigations confirmed that SAL was owned by “the same person who impersonated Alizes Marine France by having a company named Alizes Marine Ltd Labuan to get the funds diverted through Singapore”.
They also said that after conducting a company search, Zainab was found to be the shareholder and director of Sousmarine Armada Sdn Bhd.
The report also named two other companies that were said to be involved in the siphoning of funds: Azimuth Shipping Corporation and Prestigo International. The nature of their involvement is unclear due to redactions in the report.
It said: “A payment of RM1.2 million was made to Azimuth against a purchase order addressed in KL, but the payment was released in US$ to Azimuth in Singapore.
“Similar anomalies were noted pertaining to payments made to Prestigio International. These deceptive payments and related documents are missing from the accounting records.”
BHIC is the controlling shareholder of the shipyard company, which was awarded a contract to build six frigates for the navy under the littoral combat ships programme.
Parliament’s watchdog Public Accounts Committee has said RM6 billion had been spent on the project since 2014 but none of the ships had been completed or delivered.
BHIC said yesterday it had agreed to declassify its internal forensic audit report and make it public, in line with a Cabinet decision. The report, “Review of the LCS Programme“, has been published at the PAC website. Portions of the report have been redacted.