Tabung Haji chairman Tan Sri Rashid Hussain has challenged former Auditor-General Tan Sri Madinah Mohamad’s claim that she was never summoned to testify before the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into Tabung Haji.
Rashid, who was one of the six members of the RCI chaired by former chief justice Tun Raus Sharif, said the commission had in fact served Madinah with a subpoena to appear before it.
However, he said Madinah had requested to attend the proceedings together with then financial audit division deputy director Puan Mona Othman, a request which the commission did not allow.
“During RCI proceedings, we examine witnesses on a one-to-one basis. So we did not allow her (to testify with Mona),” he said during a public dialogue on Tabung Haji at Tenera Hotel & Suites.
Rashid said the RCI subsequently gave Madinah an opportunity to respond to 75 questions in writing, which she submitted through a statutory declaration.
“It is in our record as a witness statement. She submitted it on April 1, 2022,” he added.
Madinah had previously said she was denied the opportunity to be heard by the RCI despite being ready to testify before the panel.
She said she had gone to the location where the proceedings were held and waited for more than 30 minutes, but was not called.
Madinah, who served as Auditor-General from 2017 to 2019, has also stood by the audit of Tabung Haji’s financial statements between 2014 and 2017, saying she had prioritised national interests at the time.
The RCI subsequently found that Tabung Haji had concealed its true financial position for years, reporting a RM3.4 billion profit in 2017 when it should have recorded a net loss of RM1.4 billion under the appropriate accounting standards.
The nearly RM4.8 billion difference was among the findings that led the RCI to criticise the National Audit Department for not conducting stricter audits of Tabung Haji’s financial statements between 2014 and 2017.
