Seafield Hindu temple riots: The “who’s who” behind the scenes
Raggie Jessy Rithaudeen
One City Development Sdn Bhd (One City) is the property developer at the center of the Sri Maha Mariamman Devasthanam Hindu temple issue. A news report dated the 28th of November 2018 attempted to put the spotlight onto Ayala Corporation, Philippines’ oldest and largest conglomerate known to date. Ayala has diverse business interests that include packaging as well as food and beverage (F&B). The company is linked to San Miguel Corp via Purefoods Corp and several of the latter’s subsidiaries. On the 15th of December 2010, San Miguel excercised a share option that gave it a 68.3 percent stake in Petron Corporation, the largest oil refining and marketing company in the Philippines.
A press release by Petron Malaysia dated the 5th of June 2013 confirmed that one of San Miguel’s shareholders was none other than Mirzan Mahathir, sone of Malaysian premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. According to documents I sighted, Mirzan was elected to the Board of Directors at Petron Corporation on the 13th of August 2010. Several quarters from the DAP attempted to link Mirzan and Mahathir to the temple melee by leaking to media that Ayala’s property arm, Ayala Land, owned 66.25 percent of the Bursa Malaysia-listed MCT Berhad, One City’s parent concern. The attempt was to link the Monday riots to Mahathir in a bid to shift the spotlight from the true perpetrator, a Chinese lawyer.
Question is, who’s the lawyer?
Let’s kick things off by asking ourselves who Tan Sri Barry Ming Choon Goh is. Aged 54, Barry has been in the civil construction business since 1997 and, together with Dato’ Sri Tong Seech Wi and Dato’ Goh Meng Keong, co-founded Modular Construction Technology Sdn Bhd. In 1994, Barry incorporated APT Focus Sdn Bhd to trade electronic and electrical components across Southeast Asia and several other parts of the world. APT eventually changed its name to B&G Capital Resources Sdn Bhd before being consolidated with Modular under MCT Consortium Sdn Bhd in 2004. Barry gradually renamed the umbrella company MCT Consortium Berhad. He is currently the Chairman and Executive Director of the Subang Jaya based BGMC International Limited, a company that got listed in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on the 9th of August 2017.
