Kedah’s MB said the project was not considered by the state government, yet Ting insists the alleged RM30 billion project will take off soon.
Tan Sri Ting Pek Khiing was served with an arrest warrant following his failure to appear in court in a suit involving him and his creditors demanding for monies to be repaid.He was due to appear in court to answer questions by creditors on June 7 but did not turn up.
The warrant instructed police to apprehend Ting and present him to the High Court on June 29.
An arrest warrant was also issued for Ting’s wife, Wong Sui Chuo, on May 18 after she too failed to turn up in court.
Reportedly, the order to attend a public enquiry hearing was issued for the couple after the bankrupt businessman announced last Thursday that he was embarking on an RM30 billion development project in Langkawi.
According to The Edge Financial Daily, when the creditors discovered through the media that Ting had an RM30 billion project that he wanted to launch, they were in all honesty very happy for him.
“All they request is that ‘if he has the money, if he can afford it, please pay off the creditors first’,” a source was quoted as saying in the report.
Ting’s lawyers asserted that his client’s absence was due to him preparing for the purported multi-billion project in Langkawi.
It was also reported that Ting has been bankrupt since 1991 while two bankruptcy orders were also filed against him in 2010 although a fourth document stated that he is “not bankrupt”.
According to The Edge Financial Daily, Ting has yet to be discharged from bankruptcy by the Director General of Insolvency and the total debt owed by Ting to the creditors exceeds RM390 million.
Among others, Ting reportedly owes Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd, Alliance Investment Bank Bhd, Alliance Merchant Bank Bhd, Insas Credit & Leasing Sdn Bhd, Datuk Hu Chang Pee, Southeast Asia Special Asset Management Bhd, Multi Purpose Bank Bhd and Interhill Enterprise Sdn Bhd.
Sarawak-born Ting was involved in the Bakun hydroelectric Dam and the Plaza Rakyat skyscraper projects in the 1990s. Both projects turned out to be financial disasters and Ting’s company Ekran ended up in receivership.
Ting, who had kept a low profile for the past 16 years, resurfaced last week to announce that the Langkawi New City project will take off soon.
At a press conference yesterday, he talked at length about how he spent the last 25 years planning the project and obtaining the approval from the authorities.
Ting insisted that the project “is still valid” even though the new Kedah Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir had recently said his state government had never received any proposal for the RM30 billion project.
Mukhriz reportedly said that the project was not considered by the Kedah state government, and hence he was surprised when Ting announced it on May 31.
He said the original proposal is no longer considered valid, as it was not followed by a deposit payment required for mega projects in Kedah.
To this, Ting said he would resubmit the project proposal to the Kedah state government soon to seek the final approval.
When informed that Mukhriz had said the proposal “is no longer valid”, Ting said: “It has been a long time already. We have all the documents here.”
He even added that maybe the Kedah government had forgotten about the proposal and hence he will soon make a visit to Kedah to submit the documents.
“He (Mukhriz) was out of office and now he is back. It doesn’t matter, I make this announcement now and this project will take off soon.”
Asked if he had the financial means to implement the project, Ting said: “I don’t need money to do this thing. The investors are paying the money.
“They (foreign investors) are from all over the world. The investors are from overseas, not locals. It’s a RM30 billion project.”
Ting claimed that Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad “was very keen to have this project in Langkawi.”
He asserted that relevant government agencies like the Department of Environment and Langkawi Development Authority have given their approval to the project.
As for appearing in court on June 29, Ting confirmed that he will comply with the order.
“I’ll be there. I haven’t seen the notice but I saw it in the paper. If I am not there, they will arrest me,” he said.
Ting termed the issue as “just a small matter” and repeatedly said that the news report on this issue was some quarters “wanting to embarrass me”.
He said it is human nature to embarrass others and he stressed that “I don’t blame them”.
He claimed that he was so busy with the proposed Langkawi New City Project that he could not be present in court as expected on June 7.
He alleged that he had written a letter to the High Court in Kuala Lumpur to explain why he was not able to appear in court.
“People just want to embarrass me. I’m not a murderer, I’m not a criminal. I told them that I would come any other day (than June 7),” he said, insisting that he is not running away from the issue.
Related reports:
June 4, After Langkawi Backlash, Daim Advises Ting to Stay Retired
June 3, Opposition Against Ting’s Langkawi Project