KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 3): PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli has claimed that a businessman involved in the MySejahtera app was also behind a company receiving payments for technical services in the littoral combat ship (LCS) project.

According to Rafizi, Jaya Sudhir Jayaram is a businessman who allegedly had links to Datuk Dr Abdul Latiff Ahmad, a minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of special functions, and had purported connections to JSD Corp Pte Ltd, a company incorporated in Singapore.

The company had received payments by Boustead Naval Shipyard Sdn Bhd for non-existent technical services, said the politician in a statement on Thursday (Nov 3).

He said the businessman and the minister were linked through their shareholdings in Mega P Asia Sdn Bhd, which had received naval defence contracts from Boustead subsidiaries, including supplying manpower for Boustead projects.

Abdul Latiff and his brother Abdul Aziz Ahmad were replaced as directors of Mega P Asia, which was named in the LCS forensic report, by Jaya Sudhir's sons — Johnathan Jaya Sudhir and Gregory Jaya Sudhir — on March 10, 2020.

Citing news reports, Rafizi said Jaya Sudhir had been involved in a number of scandals, including one in which he and two others via a company named Mastek Sdn Bhd paid the Saddam Hussein regime US$10 million (RM47.46 million) in illegal surcharges in exchange for contracts to purchase crude oil from Iraq under United Nations' oil-for-food programme.

Jaya Sudhir was also purportedly involved in MySejahtera. According to Rafizi, P2 Asset Management Sdn Bhd, controlled by Johnathan and Gregory, is a shareholder of MySJ Sdn Bhd.

The company had sued the other shareholders of MySJ over a dispute involving the shareholders' agreement between P2 Asset Management and Revolusi Asia Sdn Bhd, while Jaya Sudhir had purportedly been appointed as chief business development officer of MySejahtera, according to Rafizi.

"For these reasons, I am interested in investigating the involvement of Jaya Sudhir in the LCS scandal because he has been mentioned to be an important person by the highest officers in the Navy," he said.

He said while Jaya Sudhir did not appear to have any official role at the firm, the company's name is an acronym of his name.

"Checks with the company registrar in Singapore show that Jaya Sudhir is neither a shareholder nor director of the firm, which is a known modus operandi that he had used in other scandals.

"Therefore, even if Jaya Sudhir is not officially in JSD Corp, I suppose this matter needs to be investigated more thoroughly by the authorities, in view of his record of being involved in many big national scandals and his cunning modus operandi before this," he said.