KUALA LUMPUR (June 28): The rival faction in the Malay Chamber of Commerce Malaysia (DPMM) maintained today that the appointment of Datuk Seri Syed Hussein Alhabshee as president on its June 15 annual general meeting is legitimate.

At a press conference today, Syed Hussein also claimed that the only reason Rizal Faris Mohideen Abdul Kader is still named as president in the Registrar of Societies' (RoS) eRoses online record is because Rizal held the password to the chamber's account.

Recall that the faction against Rizal Faris had voted to oust him as president at an extraordinary general meeting on Nov 22 last year, due to alleged misappropriation of the chamber's fund of RM5 million.

The group has sent several letters to RoS over the past six months to conduct the change but without response. "It is purely technical. We do not blame the RoS, it is the system. But we hope common sense prevails that [the correction can] be done in writing," Syed Hussein said.

theedgemarkets.com is reaching out to RoS for comments.

Meanwhile, Syed Hussein also explained that Rizal did not voice out when the former's group issued the notice for the June 15 AGM, which was attended by nine of 15 assembly chiefs.

Rizal, who plans to hold another AGM tomorrow (June 29), had recently issued a statement claiming that Syed's faction was no longer members of the association since August last year.

The statement was made by Rizal on grounds that Syed Hussein and 17 others voided their membership by filing a legal suit against the association to force Rizal to eventually hold the EGM on Nov 22, 2018.

But Syed Hussein questioned the claim, because following a court order, his camp was also called in alongside Rizal's faction for the assembly's executive council that officially called for the EGM.

"If Rizal said our membership was revoked in August, we were called in for the council meeting. [His statement] is just an afterthought following the [resolutions passed in the] June 15 AGM," said Syed Hussein.

On the reason Syed Hussein's camp withdrew the suit against Rizal, the former explained that the withdrawn suit is to affirm the legitimacy of the Nov 22 EGM and challenge a separate meeting which Rizal's faction organised on the same date.

"That suit was not heard [due to schedule] and we found it appropriate to conduct the AGM on June 15 [to set things straight]. That turned the suit to become purely academic, and to make things easier for RoS' [record purposes], we withdrew the suit," he said, reiterating that Rizal's camp did not oppose the call for the June 15 AGM.

Moving on, the group called for the authorities to expedite the investigations into the alleged misappropriation of the RM5 million fund received from the government.

Syed Hussein produced a document from DPMM Penang division, confirming that the funds were channelled to the division's account without the central council's approval.

"If this is not CBT (criminal breach of trust) then I don't know what is," Syed Hussein said.

"Rizal talked about using the fund to develop a mobile app, but the MoF (Ministry of Finance) letter clearly shows that the fund can only be used for entrepreneurship community programmes," he added, while producing a copy of the letter that was signed by Rizal himself.

Syed Hussein also commented on a police report filed by DPMM secretary general Don Nazwin Don Najib against the former and 17 others for allegedly misusing DPMM's name and facilities.

He produced a letter written in August last year and signed by Don Nazwin — then the state assembly chief for DPMM Kuala Lumpur — which supported calls to remove Rizal as president then.

"Now he is given the secretary-general post, he turned around his decision," said Syed Hussein.