Sime Darby Sacked-and-now-sued-former-CEO Dato’ Seri Ahmad Zubir Murshid is striking back. He is saying what where here at BigDogDotCom have said at length before: The Board of Directors (BOD) have to take responsibility of the Qatar Project (QP), Maersk Oil Qatar (MOQ) and Bakun projects.
Ex-CEO: Sime board was in control
By LISA GOH
lisagoh@thestar.com.my
KUALA LUMPUR: Former Sime Darby Bhd chief executive officer Datuk Seri Ahmad Zubir Murshid has lashed out at the Sime group, saying that its main board was collectively responsible over the company’s recent multi-billion ringgit losses.In his statement of defence filed recently, Ahmad Zubir said that the main board of Sime group had control over the management and was “the ultimate decision-making process of the group.”
“This action (of instituting proceedings against the defendants) constitutes a selective prosecution of the defendants for a collateral purpose and is an abuse of process.
“The decision-making process went through many levels of detailed discussions and approvals which culminated in the approval by the main board of Sime group,” he said.
He said Sime group was at all times apprised of the issues at the divisional level by the supervisory committee, through members of the main board who sat in that committee.
Ahmad Zubir said the supervisory committee – comprising the president, group chief executive and main board members – was always chaired by a board member other than the president and group chief executive.
He added that the international contracting plans were undertaken with the full knowledge and approval of the supervisory committee and the main board.Last December, Sime Darby Bhd filed a civil suit against Ahmad Zubir and four other former senior personnel for restitution in the sum of at least RM338mil plus general and aggravated damages and other relief.
The group, which has diverse business interests including in plantation, property and energy, had said in a statement that the suit was in connection with its loss-making Qatar Petroleum (QP), Maersk Oil Qatar (MOQ) and marine projects, which amounted to some RM2.1bil in losses.
The other four defendants are former head of the group’s energy and utilities (E&U) division Datuk Mohamad Shukri Baharom, former E&U division chief financial officer Abdul Rahim Ismail, former oil and gas head of E&U division Abdul Kadir Alias and former Sime Darby Engineering Sdn Bhd senior general manager Zaki Othman.
In its statement of claim, Sime Darby had alleged that the five acted as a “decision-making unit” in the energy and utilities division and were responsible for the division’s actions and omissions.****************
And the top of the heap is former Deputy Prime Minister Tun Musa Hitam, as the Chairman. He head an extraordinary illustrious BOD which at this time last year, consist of ‘Two Tuns, five Tan Sris and four Dato’s’. Musa is a Non Executive Chairman. However, he behaved like a CEO.
He is well remunerated as where he is at the moment. Sources within that Musa in his position, is currently enjoying an aggregate of RM 2 million per annum in his package and all the finer things that he was thought as ‘enjoying his privileges’, such as flying in executive jets.
Musa, has the fiduciary duty as the Chairman of the BOD to protect the interests of the shareholders. If Zubir and the management have been misleading the BOD with lousy or inadequate reporting, then he should have asked the right questions. And yet he did not. For three years, he allowed the management represented by Zubir to report false progress and position of the projects.
All the project failures did not come as a surprise in May 2010, when Musa led a marathon meeting of 13 hours to decide on the sacking of Zubir based on the severity of the Bakun, QP and MOQ projects.The QP and MOQ projects failure were presented here in details for than two years ago. It was all too obvious as Sime Darby was then the laughing stock of the oil and gas fabricators’ ‘market talk’.
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