KUCHING, Oct 19: The government should set up an independent commission of inquiry to investigate Malaysian Airlines’ operations and accounts for the last 20 years.
Kuching MP Chong Chieng Jen said the independent commission of inquiry appointed by the government should also investigate everything, including all contracts for the last two decades.
“We have an airline that is consistently sustaining loses year in year out. (We have to know the problems of MAS) Because we are paying for it,” he told reporters.
He said the MAS CEO resigned suddenly and the previous CEO were pressured to resign — all indicating something was wrong in the airlines.
Chong also said that when Datuk Seri Idris Jala was heading MAS, he was merely doing creative accounting to turn red to black and losses to gains, by selling off the fleet of aircraft and leasing it back.
Current Malaysia Airlines CEO Peter Bellew resigned on Tuesday, midway through a three-year contract that was supposed to end in June 2019.
Bellew, who joined the national flag carrier in 2015 as its chief operating officer before replacing Christoph Mueller in July 2016, is returning to Ryanair as the budget airline’s chief operations officer starting Dec 1.
Bellew’s resignation mirrored that of his predecessor Mueller who also left halfway through a three-year contract, citing “personal reasons.”
It is believed that Bellew, like Mueller before him, could not agree on some of the decisions by Malaysia Airlines owner Khazanah Nasional over the overall running of the national carrier.
Investment fund Khazanah took the the carrier private at the end of 2014 in the aftermath of the twin aviation disasters the same year. Flight MH370 disappeared enroute to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur in March 2014, and Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine in July that year. —DayakDaily
