Bustari not running away, still in country — Fadillah
KUCHING: Claims on social media that prominent businessman Tan Sri Bustari Yusof is hiding overseas with billions of Malaysian Ringgit derived from the Pan Borneo Highway ( PBH) Sarawak project are all lies calculated to slander him.
In stating this, Bustari’s brother, Petra Jaya MP Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof, confirmed that Bustari, owner of the PBH key contractor Lebuhraya Borneo Utara Sdn Bhd (LBU), is still in the country.
Bustari, who is one of former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s best friends, is alleged to have not been paying sub- contractors engaged to do PBH works.
“They are trying to create a sentiment (by creating stories). He ( Bustari) is in the country,” said Fadillah, who is former Works Minister.
The claims have gone viral for several days on social media.
An article that went viral also claimed that prior to the just- concluded general election, Bustari was paid RM4 billion by the Ministry of Finance but the sub- contractors were not paid a single sen from the amount.
There were also allegations that after the previous Barisan Nasional ( BN) government lost in the election, these sub contractors could not reach Bustari to collect payments for works done.
Fadillah said to his best knowledge, since the project began in September 2015 starting with the Telok Melano- Sematan phase until April this year, a total of RM2.54 billion had been paid to contractors based on their terms and conditions of payment.
Fadillah refuted the allegation that LBU would be paid RM27 billion when the project cost is only RM12.5 billion.
“The RM27-billion allocation is the cost to complete the whole Pan Borneo Highway project involving 936 kilometres in Sarawak and another 727 kilometres in Sabah while LBU is only taking care of the project in Sarawak,” he said.
He also refuted claims that the Works Ministry under him was directly involved in approving projects to his brother’s company, saying it would not be possible as the evaluation and awarding process had to go through several tiers and working committees.
Besides that, the ministry was not the decision maker in awarding the projects but only functioned as monitoring unit for implementation of projects, he added.