KUALA LUMPUR – The sessions court today was told that Datuk Rozman Isli never disclosed that his father and brother were Labuan Liberty Port Management Sdn Bhd (LLPM) shareholders throughout the presentation session in the selection process for the Labuan Liberty Port Terminal operator.
LLPM security manager Mohamad Kasli Sulaiman Darja, 56, said both presentations took place at Sentral Hilton Hotel here on December 11, 2017 and at Le Meridien Hotel, Putrajaya on December 12, 2019.
Kasli said Rozman’s father Isli Siput @ Ali and his younger brother Tony Noolan were shareholders of LLPM, but were never involved in the administration, operations, or financial aspects of the company.
“I also knew that Datuk Rozman was a member of the board of directors of Labuan Port Authority and held the position of deputy chairman. I knew this because I had met him several times during programmes organised by LLPM,” he said when reading his witness testimony at the incumbent Labuan MP’s trial.
Rozman faces charges of using his position to obtain gratification as an official of a public body, or the deputy chairman of the Labuan Port Authority, namely an employment contract as the Labuan Liberty Port operator for LLPM, in which his father and younger brother had an interest.
On the presentation at Sentral Hilton Hotel, Kasli said he and the then-LLPM corporate manager Mohamad Zaid Mohd Zain, as well as LLPM senior manager Azhar Othman, presented a technical proposal and had a question-and-answer session with the port authority’s board of directors.
“Datuk Rozman, who was present throughout the presentation, did not declare that Isli and Tony were his father and younger brother. I did not know the decision from the presentation as there was no decision announced to us,” he added.
The seventh prosecution witness said, however, that the port authority did inform that LLPM was allowed to continue port terminal operations and the company signed a land lease contract with the port authority and paid monthly instalments to the authority from November 2017 to March 2020.
Regarding the presentation at Le Meridien Hotel, Kasli said LLPM was not chosen as the terminal operator and the contract signed with the port authority previously was terminated and the company was given a notice of termination till March 31, 2020.
He said LLPM was a company that conducted shipping and transport management and handled cargo container warehouses at the port terminal from 1998 to 2020.
Replying to a question by Rozman’s counsel, Muhammad Rafique Rashid Ali, the witness said that the port authority had allowed LLPM to lease the port terminal property to manage the terminal operations while waiting for a decision on the selection of operator.
Earlier, the sixth prosecution witness, LLPM general manager Abd Gani Paijan, 71, said during the presentation at Sentral Hilton Hotel, the port authority had informed that LLPM was allowed to continue operating the terminal.
“As I knew it, (the port authority) delayed the process of appointing an operator and LLPM was allowed to continue to operate,” he said.
Gani agreed with the lawyer’s suggestion that LLPM had failed to obtain the tender as terminal operator after the tender was submitted in 2017 and 2019.
He was, however, unsure that the company appointed as port terminal operator was LP Multi Terminal Sdn Bhd and the witness agreed with the lawyer that the minutes of the board of director’s meeting on March 21, 2018 did not state LLPM’s appointment as the terminal operator. – Bernama, October 18, 2022
