Kota Kinabalu: A 53-year-old operation director of a training company was charged with submitting false claims amounting to RM469,050.
Ag Ruzi Ag Tahir pleaded not guilty before Sessions Court Judge Jason Juga to the charge against him on Thursday.
Ag Ruzi is accused of producing the claim containing false details on an invoice dated Jan 25, 2018 with title “Implementing the Increased Capacity and Specific Skills Training in 2017: Welding 6G Level 3 & Bosiet Training programme”. But the programme was never implemented.
The charge stated that Ag Ruzi submitted the claim to Chief Assistant Director of State Economic Planning Unit (Sepu), Murad Abd Rashid, at Sepu office off Jalan Pintas Penampang, near here on Feb 23, 2018.
The offence, under Section 18 of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act and punishable under Section 24(2) of the same Act, provides imprisonment of up to 20 years and fine of up to five times the value of the false claims, or RM10,000, whichever is higher, if found guilty.
The court set March 17 for pre-trial case management and released Ag Ruzi on bail of RM100,000 with RM20,000 deposited in two local sureties.
He was ordered to report to MACC’s office once in two months and his passport, if any, to be surrendered to court. He was reminded not to disturb the prosecution witnesses.
Earlier, Deputy Public Prosecutor Nurul Izzati Sapifee from MACC, proposed bail of RM100,000 with several conditions to be imposed on Ag Ruzi.
However, counsel Arthur Borine who defended Ag Ruzi, asked for the bail to be reduced saying that Ag Ruzi, who was the breadwinner of his family, has six children and a wife who is suffering from stage two cancer.
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