Rafizi, PKR intervened in Splash takeover, says Gerakan

(The Star) – Selangor Gerakan has alleged that PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli and the party had intervened in the negotiations on the takeover of Syarikat Pengeluar Air Selangor Holdings Bhd (Splash) during Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim’s tenure as mentri besar.

Its state liaison committee chairman, Datuk David Ang Chin Tat, claimed that this was exposed on Rafizi’s blog and in Splash shareholder Tan Sri Wan Azmi Wan Hamzah’s letter to blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin.

“The letter from Wan Azmi stated that Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as the (then) economic adviser, had brought Wan Azmi to see Khalid, then Selangor mentri besar, to hear explanations why Splash was offered such low pricing.

“Another piece of evidence is the admission on Rafizi’s blog that PKR leaders had repeatedly questioned Khalid for not meeting Splash.

“It was also one of the reasons to remove him as mentri besar,” he claimed at a press conference yesterday.

Ang said that Splash was the remaining water concessionaire back then stalling on the deal with the state government as it was adamant that the state’s last takeover offer of RM250mil fell short of its net asset valuation of RM2.5bil.

It was earlier reported that the takeover offer of RM250mil had allegedly increased around 11-fold to RM2.975bil.

Khalid denied making the offer of RM2.975bil during his tenure and said that the state administration arrived at RM250.6mil for equity compensation while assuming its RM1.584bil liabilities as the fair value for Splash.

He also reportedly said that it was “an obvious attempt to divert discussion on the current state administration’s decision to pay Splash for an equity compensation of RM2.7bil”.

Current Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Azmin Ali had earlier alleged that the RM2.975bil was agreed upon during Khalid’s administration.

“We believe that there is a cause to suspect possible conflict of interest when politicians are involved in negotiations between the state government and private companies.

“Paying 11 times more using Selangor funds to private parties instead of paying 11 times less does not make sense,” said Ang, adding that Selangor Gerakan was concerned about the possible burden of increased monthly water cost for residents in the Klang Valley due to this deal.