Of course, Zakaria will be let off the 37 charges.

The problem is that the 37 charges don’t relate at all to his real “sins” and one can’t punish him for the real sins because those sins are shared by his superiors and peers of his exclusive club and the constitute the modus operandi and raison de etre of the club and its purposes!

37 charges relate to mere technical offences under the Companies
Act: eg. failure to
hold annual general meetings, submit financial statements etc which are routinely committed by other companies’ directors and companies secretaries let off with a fine since these offenmces are compoundable!

What is there then for AG to ask the Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM) on why the charges were dropped?

It is not as if Zakaria’s technical infractions under Companies Act have caused great public harm or loss as otherwise happened in cases where directors manipulated financial statements or rigged share price causing the investing public to lose hundreds of millions of Ringgit.

Now if those implicated in the defrauding of Omega Securities Sdn Bhd of over RM424 million could, with the right connections, get off with a comparatively light fine of RM 3 to 6 million instead of custodial sentence, why expect the politically influential Zakaria to be punished more by failing to file annual accounts or returns?

The real “sandiwara” of the Zakaria episode is that these techical offences have been brought against Zakaria as a mere “substitute” to appease public outrage against his real “sins” which Zakaria has not yet really been required or made to account so far or charged under any law!

And what are these “sins” or wrong doings that are?

You may want to consider the following:

1. He bought from the State government a 43,000 sq ft plot of land in Kampung Idaman valued by gov’t valuers at RM1.3 million based on the lower end of the going rate for land in the area of between RM30 and RM40 per sq ft. for only RM180,000-00. It shows how in the milieu of the NEP’s implementation, political influence can be leveraged for personal benefit of the few over the rest and to add salt to wound he built a palatial mansion amidst poor squatters.

Again here, what has happened is a reflection of goings ons in larger context by bigger players – for example in the PKFZ scandal, Port Klang Authority (PKA) bought the land from the politically connected Kuala Dimensi for an exorbitant RM1.8 at roughly RM25 per sq ft. when it could otherwise require its compulsory purchase under the Land Acquisition Act at market value of RM720 million at RM10 per sq ft – there being, in YB Kit’s words “an astronomical difference of RM1.1 billion” as compared to Zakaria’s paltry RM RM1,120,000-00!

So again if they are not going to hold the officers of PKA responsible for benefiting the politically influential seller Kuala Dimensi by RM1.1 billion at public expense, why grudge politically loyal soldier Zakaria for benefiting from the state government a paltry RM RM1,120,000-00? It is considered as just recompense for him to get votes for his party that involve spending a lot of money in our milieu of “money politics”….

2. Zakaria was alleged to have ignored building regulations in its construction of his restaurant. It would be ordinary for Klang Municipal Council (MPK) to make him accountable by hefty fines or tear down the building.

But how to make him accountable when he and 2 other family members were also municipal councillors? Just like how he as president of The Selangor Badminton Association (SBA) helped SBA to acquire a piece of land cheap from PKNS Selangor in which he was also chairman of the PKNS land committee!

In a word, we are talking about the “sins” or wrong doing of abuse of power from conflicts of interest and selective or unequal or rather more equal protection under the law.

We give lip service to guard against these evils because that’s what the colonial masters drafted in our constitution and what the Mat Sallehs as neo colonialist now still dictate to us if we want their investments and business. “Everyone, including politicians from the Barisan Nasional coalition parties, will be investigated if there is suspicion of abuse of power”, one of our top leaders once declared!

In the feudal political culture of our ruling clique, there is actually no such thing as abuse of power, conflicts of interest, equality before the law because political power and influence is everything – without it, one is nothing, with it, the benefit of unfair advantage over others and position to transcend laws ordinarily applicable to ordinary mortals.

That is how the ruling class sells itself and the types of benefit to join it and to be loyal to its interests.

Zakaria’s misfeasance in 1. and 2. above is nothing but a mere embodiment, metaphor and symbol (albeit in miniature scale) of the poltical culture of his party. In a perverse way, there is “justice” in not punishing him harshly because he’s a loyal foot soldier being rewarded exactly the same manner as his captains, brigadier and generals are, in bigger scale, as part the benefits and spoils of political victory.

Besides, to punish him is discredit and punish the very culture and values and reward system within it that are sancrosanct to be preserved to keep the political ruling party prosperous, influential and self-perpetuating in political position.

Yet the public is outraged and their appetite for something to be done (when found out) has to be whetted. How?

So the sandiwara of charging him for something else – 37 infractions under the Companies Act, safe in knowledge that these have nothing to do with and will not bring into sharper focus the real sins 1, 2 above which need to be protected from public ire, because, as I have said, these are the very reason of existence (raison de etre) of the ruling clique.

But something apparently went wrong.

Any attempt at pretending to do what the US treasury Dept did in 1930s – ie getting Al Capone incarcerated on his failure to file tax returns for gangland murders that it could not prove – cannot work.

It just happened that these 37 charges are by law compoundable and may be withdrawn after fines are paid by Zakaria (just like any other companies directors and secretaries in similar predicament though not enjoying similar political influence).

So again public ire is not appeased, and now greater controversy generated rather than subsided. Now what? So how?

sorry, typo omission – exorbitant RM1.8 BILLION

Any first year law student reading jurisprudence of “what is law” would have been taught the point that when laws are selectively applied without consistency, they will lose the respect in relation to its sanctity of those on whom they are supposed to apply and regulate – and further no matter how wise and noble the precepts underlying such laws are, they will not be adhered to if they are not supported by shared norms, values and mores of those who enforce or are regulated by them.