Ex Minister’s Case Continues
By May Stephen

Defence lawyers take a break during the corruption case against former Develoment
Minister, Pg. Dr. Hj Ismail and contractor Wong Tim Kai. They are from left, Malaysian lawyer Christopher Fernando, Roy Prabhakaran, Ahmad Basuni, Rudi Lee and Balwant Singh Sidhu.

Bandar Seri Begawan - A clash between two lawyers took place in the Brunei High Court yesterday when a government engineer was questioned on government payments of various projects.

Defence lawyer Balwant Singh Sidhu asked prosecution witness Yee Wan Chung@Yee Kok On, an executive engineer with the government for 19 years, the details and source of payment made to contractors for projects under discussion.

Mr Andrew Macrae for the prosecution objected to the line of questioning, saying that Mr Yee was an engineer and was not expected to know details and source of payments.

Mr Yee said that these six Citibank checks only bear one signature of one Dyg Zubaidah.

Balwant Singh Sidhu: "To your knowledge or to the best of your knowledge, information and belief, are you able to tell us whether Dyg Zubaidah is an employee of the Government of Brunei, Darussalam or an employee of. Citibank?"

Yee: "From what is shown here I believe she is an employee of Citibank."

"Now you had agreed Mr Yee, in cross-examination that your department was given the task of contract administration for this project. Isn't that correct?"

"That is correct."

"You also confirmed that this project at its inception was an IPS project?"

"That's correct."

(IPS stands for Istana Project Supervisor. The Development Minister was also the IPS)

"Would you agree Mr Yee that this is not the first time that your department had been given the responsibility of contract administration for an IPS project?"

"That's correct."

"Would you agree with me Mr Yee that there was no separate and distinct documentation designed to be used for IPS projects as opposed to non-IPS government projects?"

"That's correct."

"In the course of cross-examination in chief, you had given evidence of the processing of claims for progress payments made by the contractor. Now would you agree that standard form documents were used by your department in the processing of those claims?"

"That's right."

"Now, up to progress claim No. 8. You did not know the source of the funds-other than the fact that payment was to be arranged by the IPS. Correct?"

"That is correct."

"I'd like you to refer to the bundle you were shown yesterday. If you refer to pages 14, 16, 18 and confirm that these four cheques are HSBC cheques. And that page 20 is a Standard Chartered Bank cheque. Do you agree?"

"That's right."

"Now all these four cheques have the heading Kerajaan Kebawah Duli Yang Maha Mulia Sultan Dan Yang DiPertuan Negara Brunei Darussalam. In other words, the

Government of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam?"

"That is correct."

"And would you also confirm MrYee that the 6 Citibank cheques referred to earlier for progress payments numbers 1-8 do not bear such a heading?" -

"That's correct."

"Mr Yee, now can you look to page 15 of this same bundle a payment voucher which had previously been marked as prosecution exhibit P78M. Would you confirm Mr Yee that this voucher was for progress payments numbers 9, 10 and I 1?"

"That's right."

"Would you also agree that in respect of payment 1-8 the office of the IPS was directly involved in securing an acknowledgment of the payments to the contractor?"

At that point Mr Andrew- Macrae for the prosecution objected vigorously to Mr Balwant Singh's line of questioning.

Mr Macrae said, "When the witness answers- the question I had thrown down the gauntlet yesterday as to the groundwork required when cross-examining the witness on other people's -documents." -

"Perhaps My Lord - it is nearly-10 to - let the witness take an early mid-morning break and we'll continue for a couple of minutes. This-witness My Lord has not yet been asked whether he has seen or has any personal knowledge of these documents that are put in front of him," Mr Macrae suggested before the court.

"The witness is being asked, has been asked a number of questions about documents he may never have seen before."

"Had I done that exercise with a prosecution witness, Mr Sidhu or his colleague Mr Dillon being present would have been jumping up and down."

"Now I have not objected thus so far, because questions such as `Are there one or two signatures?", `Is there a crest?' and `Is the date of the cheque so and so?' are selfevident on the face of the document and objection would be time wasted."

"My learned friend has stayed within the limits of what he could do and I'm already feeling that in relation to the future questions that may be being forecast as to the source of funds derived from these documents which is not even been re-established, this witness has never seen before. I asked him to do groundwork particularly when it comes to these acknowledgments because without it the witness's opinion is at best, opinion. At worst speculation."

Balwant: "Now my final question Mr Yee - tell us if you don't know if you do not know the answer and I am putting it to you, that payments for payment certificates 1-8 for this project were not made from a government account?"

Macrae: "That question I will object to. My Lord, I have already given my reasons yesterday afternoon and this morning, such and such a question must be way beyond the knowledge and competence of this witness. Let us examine this question for a moment.

Assuming traditional defence exhibits 44A-F are true copies, and for present purposes I accept they are, he is in effect being asked if the account on which those cheques are drawn, was a government account.

With effect, that is not the question that this engineer witness, he had never even been asked if he has seen these cheques and we simply do not know, and the witness cannot help us as to how the payments were made after the payment certificates were sent to IPS - that has been his evidence throughout."

"He is now being asked to be a Citibank official and to speculate or give his opinion about a government account or about an account as to whether or not it is a government account. My Lord, a witness can be crossexamined as to facts within his knowledge but he must know of facts about which he testifies," added Macrae.

"In my submission, he should not be invited in front of the hypothetical jury to speculate in his consistent evidence throughout this trial which has been that he does not know what happened or indeed how the funding was arranged or after payment certificates were sent to the IPS office.

My Lord, you have my submissions as evident upon the 5, 6, and 7th of September, that he claimed that he did not know about the funding arrangements, and l 'object to the question."

Balwant: "Very short response. Firstly whether this witness had no share in respect of that part of the case, relating to payments, I say that it cannot be disputed that this witness was directly involved in the processing of the payment certificates.

This witness handled the processing of the progress certificates and My Lord, we have a list of the prosecution witnesses and it may well be the case that there may not be a more suitable witness to whom we could put what I have put to this witness.

With this sentence I repeat that I humbly submit that this should be allowed and that the objection should be overruled."

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