KOTA KINABALU: An auditor and a retired administrative assistant have been charged with corruption amounting to RM780,000, with the alleged offences taking place in 2014 and 2015.
Zulfikar Khomeini Asli, 44, and Mat Salleh @ Awang Sapong Sapong, 67, both pleaded not guilty after the charges were read before them at the Special Corruption Court here on Tuesday (May 23).
They were both working at the Sabah Finance Ministry when the alleged offences were committed between July 2014 and November 2015.
Zulkifar is facing 34 charges for requesting and accepting bribes in numerous transactions to help a company evade tax and for spot checks not to be conducted on the company over alleged falsification of sales tax statements.
He is accused of accepting the bribes by asking the said company to transfer the money to his mother and sister’s company accounts.
Mat Salleh was accused of abetting these deals and transactions during the same period.
Judge Jason Juga allowed RM80,000 bail with a RM20,000 deposit and two local sureties each for the accused.
He also ordered that both of them report to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) office once every two months.
They were also instructed to hand over their passports to the court until their case is over.
It is learnt that both accused are still trying to come up with the money to post bail at the time of writing.
MACC director for Sabah Datuk S Karunanithy said the state Finance Ministry is in the process of recovering under-declared tax from several palm oil companies.
