IT is learnt that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had arrested three top officials of technical rubber compound specialist GIIB Holdings Bhd (formerly Goodway Integrated Industries Bhd).
The nature of their offences and charges are not immediately known. FocusM is awaiting feedback from MACC pertaining to the offences and charges.
The three individuals are believed to be the company’s executive chairman and CEO Tai Boon Wee, 63, and two executive directors, Tai Qisheng, 37, and Alison Wong Ping Kiong 60.
“Another executive director of GIIB, Tai Qiyao, 36, had coincidently left Malaysia prior to the arrest,” a source told FocusM. Both Qiyao and Qisheng are sons of Boon Wee.
On May 27, FocusM reported that GIIB might have breached the core corporate governance principle of transparency by concealing an originating summons (OS) served on the company by its former executive director Wong Weng Yew on May 19.
Wong, 38, who is also a shareholder of GIIB with a 6% stake, coincidentally had his services terminated on the same day after the company’s external independent auditor found sufficient basis to hold him accountable for misconduct as per the charges made against him in a show cause letter dated March 28 this year.
The OS has named as defendants Boon Wee, Qiyao, Qisheng, non-independent non-executive director Wong Ping Kiong and the company itself.
According to GIIB’s Annual Report 2020, Wong was appointed as an executive director of GIIB on Feb 23 last year whereby he was made responsible for managing the group’s finance and accounting operations.
In his OS, Wong, among others, disputed the reasons given by the company to change its financial year end to June 30, 2022 from Dec 31, 2021, notably to facilitate the recent investigation into the management and its handling of the glove business as well as the accounts of the company and its subsidiaries.
Claiming the reasoning as falsehood, Wong said the company’s auditor Grant Thornton Malaysia PLT has in fact issued a disclaimer of opinion in its draft audited accounts of the company that “ … we have not been able to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to provide a basis for an audit opinion on these financial statements”.
This follows the requirement by GIIB to file its Annual Report 2021 and unified financial statements for its financial year-ended Dec 31, 2021 on or before April 30, 2022.
“If the disclaimer is made public, GIIB would have triggered a Practice Note 17 (PN17) situation with all the transactions ultimately exposed to the public and market authorities,” the OS pointed out.
“But with the change of its financial year-end from Dec 31, 2021 to June 30, 2022, GIIB only has to announce the unified financial statements or draft audit accounts on or before Oct 31, 2022.”
However, GIIB stated in a filing to Bursa Malaysia on Aug 18 that the company has received a notice of discontinuance from Messrs Chong + Kheng Hoe, the solicitor acting for Wong informing that he has discontinued the whole of OS against all five defendants.
GIIB has thus far posted 16 straight quarters of net losses after remaining in the red for its April-June 2022 quarter with a net loss of RM486,000 (4Q FY2021: RM1.26 mil).
At 4.30pm, GIIB was unchanged at 7.5 sen with 2.26 million shares traded, thus valuing the company at RM44 mil. – Sept 9, 2022
