SHAH ALAM, Oct 26 — A 41-year-old businessman broke down in tears after being fined RM20,000 in default 20 months jail by the High Court here today for five counts of bribing a Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) engineer to refrain from cutting off electricity supply at his premises between 2019 and 2021.
Judge Datuk Anita Harun fined Ng Yin Wui, RM4,000 or four months prison in default for each count after he pleaded guilty to all the charges.
According to the charges, Ng was accused of offering RM8,000 as bribes to a 31-year-old TNB engineer at two restaurants in Sunway Mentari, Petaling Jaya between Nov 1, 2019, and Nov 15, 2021.
The bribes were an inducement for the engineer to not cut off the power supply at Ng’s premises for the theft of electricity and modifying the electricity meter, which are offences under Section 37(14) of the Electricity Supply Act 1990.
The accused, the owner of a plastic recycling centre, was charged under Section 214 of the Penal Code which is punishable by up to six months imprisonment or fine, or both, upon conviction.
The accused, who was unrepresented, started crying as he pleaded for a lesser fine on the basis that he was the sole breadwinner of his family and that it was his first offence.
However, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Prosecuting Officer V. Yunaisvari asked for the court to mete out a deterrent sentence, considering the public interest and amount involved, to send a clear message that the law will not compromise on such offences.
In the same court, a woman, S. Amutha, 29, pleaded not guilty to deceiving a Social Security Organisation (Socso) officer by submitting a false list of 14 names of individuals who were not her company employees, under the Career Generator System 2.0.
The offence was allegedly committed with the intention to deceive and confuse Socso at the Employment Services Officer Unit, Selangor Socso in Petaling Jaya near here on April 28 and 30, 2021.
She was charged under Section 18 of the MACC Act 2009, which is punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment and a fine of not less than five times the falsified sum or value of the defective material, or RM10,000, whichever is the higher, upon conviction.
Judge Anita allowed bail of RM25,000 with one surety and ordered the accused to report once a month at the Negeri Sembilan MACC Office as well as surrender her passport to the court.
The next case mention was set for Nov 29.
— Bernama
