“I demand that TH Chairman, Datuk Seri Abdul Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim resign with immediate effect over his failure to ensure that the financial performance of the fund would not affect the savings of depositors,” he said in a press statement released today.
He also criticised TH CEO, Ismee Ismail for “attempting to confuse the rakyat with his statement yesterday which seemed to portray that TH was not experiencing any financial problems.”
Rafizi, who is Pandan MP, confirmed that he had sighted TH’s audited financials as at December 31, 2014 which was furnished to all parliamentarians, an excerpt of which accompanied his statement.
He drew attention to the level of reserves declared in the pilgrim fund’s audited statement for financial year (FY) 2014 and said that any positive accumulated reserves would signify two things:
- TH had successfully made good profits, and its investment decisions were accurate.
- Bonus/dividends could be paid out to depositors, with larger accumulated reserves signifying the possibility of greater bonus/dividends.
However, he said that TH’s audited financial statement for FY2014 indicated its accumulated reserves stood at negative RM351 million.
He summarised a breakdown of TH’s total fund size as follows:
“For the year ending 31 December 2014…its accumulated fund totalled RM54 billion, comprising depositors’ savings’ fund of RM54.358 billion and accumulated reserve losses of RM351 million.
“(This) indicates that TH’s accumulated reserves were already negative i.e. accumulated losses of RM351 million.”
Rafizi concluded that “if all TH depositors want to claim their savings of RM54.358 billion, the total of TH’s assets is insufficient to pay back the sum and will be short of RM351 million.”
He predicted that outlook would worsen for FY2015, with TH possibly recording “accumulated losses far exceeding RM350 million” on the back of a slumping stock market and weakening ringgit.
The PKR lawmaker also warned that Malaysians should be aware that if the pilgrim fund continues to show accumulated reserve losses for FY2015, TH would not be able to pay out a bonus to depositors unless it borrowed or liquidated its assets. He noted that audited financials for FY2015 will only be made available by end 2016.