Controversy over Menara UOA Bangsar

PETALING JAYA: A unique situation has risen over the management of Menara UOA Bangsar, one of five commercial office blocks under UOA REIT, which comes under the UOA Group.

Last week, the management committee was rendered “paralysed” when seven out of its nine committee members resigned.

The remaining two cannot form the management committee under the Strata Management Act (2013) where a minimum of three is required, said Datuk Satharuban Sivasubramaniam, Menara UOA Bangsar Management Corp chairman.

Datuk Satharuban said the seven resigned because of an impasse over various issues, one of which was the number of committee members it should have. He is among the seven.

“UOA REIT proposed to reduce the number of committee members from nine to three and the seven who resigned were against the proposal. They (UOA REIT) wanted to control both the buildings,” Satharuban claimed.

Satharuban said there is a cash surplus of about RM16mil in the accounts, derived from maintenance charges and sinking fund collected.

The seven who resigned, said Satharuban, were from Tower A, which UOA had earlier sold to private individual owners. The remaining two representatives who were rendered “functionless” after the resignation, were from UOA Group, who owns Tower B.

The UOA brand as a commercial office developer and landlord is fairly well entrenched in the country.

The controversy with regard Menara UOA Bangsar management committee arose because of a dispute over the way the accounts and financials were managed.

Said a source from UOA: “As the owner of the 24-storey Tower B (inclusive of six levels of parking and three floors of retail), we are answerable to shareholders.

“Both the blocks have different specifications and so income and expenditure differ.

“In order to be accountable to shareholders, we need to keep separate set of accounts. We have been doing this until this set of management committee came into office.”

Of the RM16mil cash surplus in its books, the UOA source said he is now unable to say how much belongs to Tower A and B as a result of the management committee combining the accounts of both blocks.

Satharuban said “there is no such thing as which belongs to Tower A and Tower B.”

Tower A is a 31-storey block while Tower B has 15 storeys of offices. Both blocks have an additional six levels of elevated car park and four levels of basement parking.