shame! shame! stealing an old lady’s money!

… a 73 years old lady, pachiammal, a grandmother from tangkak. johor. (picture left)

She had a worried look in her  face and said she regretted putting her hard-earned cash into Maika.

When asked if she was still hopeful of getting her money back, she appeared dumbfounded and declined to answer.

She need not to say anything. Her body language was enough to show her bitter disappointment in the men who managed Maika. And she was not alone.

(picture and above excerpt from malaysiakini – mentaljog extra)

poor pachiammal…. and poor other over thousand shareholders of maika.

pachiammal was among the 1,100 maika shareholders who turned up at the AGM, hoping to get some good news on their investment…. like maybe she can get back her hard-earned savings that she invested in what she thought a trusted company, maika?

Maika Holdings Berhad, which was established a quarter of century ago in 1982 to allow the Indian community in Malaysia to take a share in the country’s economic development, has been a disaster from the beginning. The company was launched with much hope and hype by MIC (one of the component parties within the ruling government) president Samy Vellu to assist the Indian community and had attracted an estimated RM106 million from 66,400 shareholders – many of whom are estate workers who had pawned their family jewellery and withdrew their life savings to invest in the company.

continue reading from stock tube blog.

by now most of you would have known about the pandemonium that broke out at the maika AGM on 30 aug. do you know someone by the handle of traveler had predicted that such a thing might occurred when on 29 aug, she/he wrote:

if you think the international fireworks competition held at Putrajaya was dazzling, come and see the fireworks in Maika AGM , tomorrow, at Sime Darby convention centre, Bukit Kiara. Samy Vellu and his opponents are gearing up for a confrontation.

from indianmalaysian.

why was the AGM date on 30 aug, the eve of merdeka? according to some shareholders, the date was purposely chosen to prevent a good turn-out (because of the long holiday weekend). the venue too, at sime darby convention centre in bukit kiara, kl, they said, was too remote and unknown to most shareholders.

well, anyway, over 1000 of the did turned up, like mdm pachiammal, who turned up with the hope to get back their returns from the investment. however all hell broke loose when some thugs were there to disrupt the meeting!

when former MIC deputy president, subramaniam lodged a police report, he said that "among the many participants in the meeting who claimed to have been roughed up by ‘thugs’ for posing difficult questions to the company’s management during the question-and-answer session."

do you know that the same thing happened to m. kula segaran, then DAP national vice chairperson, during? well… he spelled it out… he was roughed up by "a MIC state assemblyman for asking questions pertaining to the investment company’s finances".
 
oh well, and of course we don’t have to spell it out who those ‘thugs’ were from, in which subramaniam mentioned that roughed him up.

you know, it was as far back as 5 years, that i first heard from a friend something like this "in any meetings/talks where samy velu was present, you’d better don’t ask difficult questions unless you are prepared to be roughed up by thugs."

i really wonder why this – MIC + thugs + samy – thingy is so well known among many and yet nothing can be done… ??? is the samy guy so untouchable?

coming back to maika…

November 06, Samy Vellu gave a personal assurance that that investors would receive RM130 for every RM100 invested by Feb 15. He further assured shareholders will get back their money in three months.

from sk thew’s blog.

now is already sept. 07… did any of them get back their money? ayo-yo samy, what had you done? you cheated them! you run around loaded with cash (not forgetting thugs bodyguards) while those poor estate workers got nothing! no no, in fact, it’s worst – they lost their money!!… to you!! and your son!!

damn! damn! damn!!

 
NOTE
for further reading,
special report from malaysiakini. there’s a short intro on maika, then many links of reports at various dates. do subsribe to malaysiakini to read!

indianmalaysian – links from various sources eg star, edge, even malaysiakinii

MALAYSIAKU GEMILANGKAH??