KUALA LUMPUR: A chairperson and a treasurer of a non-governmental organisation were fined RM3,500 each by the Sessions Court today after pleading guilty to two charges of submitting forged documents involving the Malaysian Indian Transformation Unit (Mitra) funds three years ago.
They were accused of forging payment vouchers worth RM1,600 in total towards two separate women on 11, Oct 2020, which were submitted to Mitra under the description of ‘Volunteer Services For The Women Empowerment Program’ under the Persatuan Wanita Berjaya Sejati Malaysia.
Lalitha Mani Jayaram, 48 and Shivaranjani Balakrishnan, 42, from the Persatuan Wanita Berjaya Sejati Malaysia both pleaded guilty to the offences under Section 471 of the Penal Code when the charges were read to them before judge Azura Alwi today.
The offence falls under Section 471 of the Penal Code, punishable under Section 465 of the same act, which carries a jail term of up to two years or a fine or both, upon conviction.
Deputy public prosecutor Noor Syafina Mohd Radzuan asked the court to impose the penalty towards the accused as a deterrence for the public to not commit such offence.
In mitigation, lawyer Devandan S. Subramaniam, representing the accused, had pleaded the court for a lenient sentence owing to the fact that both of the women were first time offenders and that they were the sole breadwinners of their family.
The court later set a fine of RM 3,500 for both the accused and a prison sentence of five months if they failed to pay the fine.
It was reported that 22 individuals were detained by the MACC in operations carried out in seven states on Jan 20 to assist in the investigations into the misappropriation of funds from Mitra.
The focus of MACC’s investigation in the initial phase was on 27 companies, associations and NGOs which had received allocations of between RM1 million and RM9 million.
In October last year, Klang MP Charles Santiago had asked the National Unity Minister Datuk Halimah Mohamed Sadique to explain how funds amounting to RM9.1 million from Mitra were spent.
On Oct 9 last year, Halimah was reported to have said that the National Unity Ministry was ready to give full cooperation to the MACC on the issue that had gone viral related to Mitra’s financial grant.
Source: New Straits Times
