Syed Hamzah – Posing with police report and in happier days with his company director wife in their luxurious home.
[translated] Datuk Seri Syed Hamzah Syed Paie will take legal action against Sarawak Report and two Facebook account owners over allegations linking him to Entrepreneur and Cooperative Development Minister (Medac) Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar over granting approval to his wife’s company, Azzahra Product Sdn Bhd.
The Political Secretary to Wan Junaidi, said he had lodged a report at the Sekama Police Station at 9am today …..
“I have also instructed my lawyer in Kuala Lumpur to take legal action against Clare Rewcastle in London as the editor of Sarawak Report over the defamation leveled against me and Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi,” he said in a statement today.
Earlier, Syed Hamzah explained that the SME Corp grant amounting to RM338,950 approved to his wife’s company, Azzahra Product Sdn Bhd, had nothing to do with Wan Junaidi as Medac minister, including himself as Political Secretary to Wan Junaidi.
He said the grant was approved by SME Corp on October 10, 2017, while he and Wan Junaidi started working at Medac on April 22, 2020.
“How could Wan Junaidi and I have been involved in grant approval in the last four years when we started serving at Medac in 2020,” he said.
In this regard, Syed Hamzah said the facts were contrary to the allegations of Sarawak Report and the two Facebook account owners involved.
Strangely, when Syed Hamzah and his departmental media team and boss Wan Junaidi were contacted in advance of publication for comment by Sarawak Report none of them responded to the allegations in our article.
The political secretary, who is also nephew to Wan Junaidi, is now complaining that Sarawak Report alleged something it did not. Our article, which is online for all to read, made it quite clear that Syed’s company (which he mainly owns, but is directed by his wife) received its grant before his boss took over the Department concerned – we made clear that in 2017 their fellow PBB colleague Naroden Majais was the minister instead.
The issue that Sarawak Report related as having been passed as a complaint to the MACC was that the equipment purchase cited by his company as a core reason for the application for a BEEP grant had been made from a related party – namely a company owned by Syed’s own brother and sister.
The complaint stated that this was naturally against the rules and that grantees should not apply for public money to make purchases via family members.
If Syed Hamzah wishes to address this allegation, and indeed to address our query as to why he markets his expensive juice product as means of preventing buyers from contracting Covid-19, Sarawak Report remains ready and willing to publish his comments on our site.
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