DR Ampikaipakan: Party leaders are calling for his resignation

The little-known move was made in 2000 when the chairman, Tan Sri Dr K. Ampikaipakan, held a 30 per cent stake in the company, party leaders told Malay Mail.

The other shareholders then were Datuk Dr T. Marimuthu (30 per cent) and Bumiputera shareholder Tan Sri Rashid Manap (40 per cent).

Malay Mail checks showed the company then was not a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Maju Institute of Educational Development (MIED), the education arm of the MIC, hence the  placement of shares among the three individuals.

SCRENSHOT from ‘Malaysiakini’

“The shares were returned to the MIED about two years ago, after the 30 per cent Bumiputera requirement for educational institutions was revoked,” said an MIC leader who requested anonymity.

Certain MIC leaders are now calling for the resignation of Dr Ampikaipakan on grounds that he made the attempt to “hijack” the university when he was holding a 30 per cent stake.

The disclosure came just as MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu, in a turnabout statement, declared yesterday that “the ownership between MIC and MIED will be a perpetual relationship and will be part of the MIC”.

Samy Vellu had last month stated that he was planning to place MIED, AIMST and other NGOs under a foundation headed by him.

“Both MIED and AIMST are NGOs set up by me in my personal capacity when the Mahathir government excluded the Indian community from the mainstream and MIC could not do anything about this,” he had told online portal Malaysiakini.

“Just because I happened to be MIC president, it does not mean MIED and AIMST belong to MIC,” he added, setting off an uproar with party and community leaders balking at his proposal to disassociate MIED from the MIC.

Yesterday, he told Central Working Committee members (CWC) although the MIED and AIMST University in Semeling, Kedah, were separate entities of the MIC, no individuals or MIC leaders owned the two entities.

“The ownership between MIC and MIED will be a perpetual relationship and will be part of the MIC,” he said.

Samy Vellu said the MIED trustees and board members were made up of MIC office-bearers, thus cementing the link between the MIED and MIC.

MIED founding member and former MIC treasurer-general Tan Sri M. Mahalingam was the first to mention the attempt by Dr Ampikaipakan at a news conference early this month.

Mahalingam had also implicated Samy Vellu for giving consent to Dr Ampikaipakan’s proposal.

He had said this when rejecting the proposed move by Samy Vellu to alienate MIED and AIMST from the MIC.
Mahalingam charged that Ampikaipakan wanted MIED to transfer RM8 million to AIMST Sdn Bhd from MIED to enable the company to pay the nominal premium  to the Kedah government.

He claimed the ex-CEO of MIED, Chithirakala Vasu, and himself prevented that move by pointing out the legal aspect of that matter after consulting Tan Sri G. Vadiveloo, another lawyer on MIED’s Board of Trustees.

He stressed that it was then Kedah MIC chairman Datuk V. Saravanan who worked hard to obtain the land for MIED for a nominal premium of RM8 million.

Malay Mail understands that if AIMST Sdn Bhd paid the premium  for the land as requested by Dr
Ampikaipakan, the company would have become the legal owner of the land.

“Whatever erected on that land, a whopping RM500 million university in this case, would have been the property of AIMST Sdn Bhd, legally speaking,” said another party leader.

“If anyone wanted to hijack AIMST, it would have been easier to do that and dispose of it under a Sdn Bhd, unlike the MIED which is a Section 24 company.”

MIED was incorporated on Feb 29, 1984, as a company limited by guarantee. The initial subscribers of MIED were Samy Vellu, former deputy president Datuk S. Subramaniam, Mahalingam, Tan Sri K.S. Nijhar and R. Selvendara. MIED, whose core business is providing study loans, sourced millions of ringgit from the Indian community,  received about RM300 million from the Federal government and acquired a RM220 million loan
from Bank Pembangunan Malaysia to build the AIMST campus.

The cost of construction, which ballooned from RM230 million to close to RM500 million, has also been questioned.