Kota Kinabalu: Sabah State Assembly Speaker Datuk Seri Kadzim M Yahya denied allegations that he received money from an individual, as claimed in a video uploaded by a news portal on Monday.
Instead, he clarified that he had only borrowed RM50,000 from the individual and was unaware of the alleged RM350,000 mentioned in the video.
“I don’t know anything about the RM350,000. My response about returning the money was in relation to the RM50,000 I borrowed from him, but he said it was fine,” he said when contacted about the allegations in the video.
He further claimed that, like other State Assemblymen implicated in the corruption scandal, he was also trapped in the situation through a secretly recorded conversation.
“That’s how it is — he complained that his mining licence application was rejected and was upset. I had no idea that our conversation was being recorded to entrap me, just like the others,” he said.
Earlier, a 29-second video uploaded by a news portal showed an individual in conversation with Kadzim.
During the discussion, the businessman expressed frustration over his failure to obtain a mining licence from the Sabah Government.
The businessman also raised the issue of RM350,000 and believed to link it to the alleged mineral licence corruption scandal in the State.
Kadzim is the ninth individual to be associated with the video, after the eight Sabah assemblymen.