KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 25): Umno President Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s former executive secretary took to the witness stand in his corruption trial today to outline in detail how her former boss had used Yayasan Akalbudi funds to pay his personal credit card bills, road tax and insurance for his 20 vehicles, among others.

Major Mazlina Mazlan, who served as his executive secretary for seven years from 2011 to May 2018, told the High Court that she was entrusted with the foundation’s chequebook, which the former deputy prime minister would use to pay his personal credit card bills.

However, she testified that in 2016, her ex-boss told her not to use cheques from the foundation to pay off his personal credit card bills as the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had begun investigating the matter.

Mazlina, who is the 90th prosecution witness in the trial, said he instructed her to pay the bills using cash, instead.

According to the witness, her predecessor Datuk Rosiah Osman had handed her a file on the foundation, its official stamp, a rubber stamp bearing Ahmad Zahid’s signature, a Maybank chequebook under Zahid’s name, and the foundation’s chequebook which was issued by Affin Bank.

Mazlina said she always had Ahmad Zahid’s permission whenever she used cheques issued by Yayasan Akalbudi to pay off his personal bills.

According to her, the Bagan Datuk lawmaker had four AmIslamic Bank cards, two of which were supplementary cards under his wife Datin Seri Hamidah Khamis, as well as two Maybank cards and an American Express card under his name.

“Every time I needed to get his signature for the cheque, I would bring the credit card statement for his reference,” she said.

She added that Ahmad Zahid is very thorough and would always double check anything he signed.

“He would always reprimand me if there were any spelling mistakes, he was a thorough man. He would always check the credit card statements thoroughly before signing off on the cheques,” she said.

She said he had never asked her why she made the payments using Yayasan Akalbudi’s chequebook, instead of his private one from Maybank.

Ahmad Zahid had previously in 2018 claimed that he had asked his officer to pay the credit card bills using his personal cheque, but the officer had "mistakenly" used funds from Yayasan Akalbudi to settle the debt.

Startlingly, Mazlina also revealed that Ahmad Zahid had allowed her to use a stamp bearing his signature to sign the Yayasan Akalbudi cheques.

The witness said she only used this when he was out of the office or when he was busy at meetings.

“I would use the rubber stamp for Yayasan Akalbudi cheques as soon as I got the approval of Datuk Seri Zahid,” she said.

When he became the deputy prime minister and home minister, it became harder for her to get his signature for the cheques as he was frequently at meetings and abroad.

Mazlina said the credit card statements usually came to her after the deadline to make payment had passed as they were not sent directly to her desk.

“I was worried that because the statement was past the deadline date, Datuk Seri’s cards would be then blocked, and would cause inconvenience to [Ahmad Zahid and his wife],” she said.

“So to avoid any inconvenience to Datuk Seri or Datin Seri, I asked for Datuk Seri’s permission to use his signature chop. Datuk Seri agreed and said okay,” she said.

Zahid, 67, is facing 47 charges — 12 for criminal breach of trust, eight for corruption and 27 for money laundering — involving tens of millions of ringgit of funds belonging to Yayasan Akalbudi.

Edited by Lam Jian Wyn