KUALA LUMPUR, April 5 — The Armed Forces Fund Board (LTAT) has refuted claims by PKR’s Rafizi Ramli that 110 veterans were not paid gratuity, saying that 70 on the list had already received their respective payments.

LTAT chairman Tan Sri Mohd Anwar Mohd Nor said of the remainder on the list by the Pandan MP, documents from 23 members only arrived yesterday from the Defence Ministry’s Armed Forces Payroll Directorate (Ugat) while 16 more have yet to be received.

One member, he said, had failed a fingerprint verification but has since been contacted.

“LTAT would like to reemphasise and reiterate that all gratuity payments to members who have concluded their service with the armed forces including all 70 members mentioned above, have been, and will continue to be, made within 24 hours of LTAT receiving the completed and approved documents from Ugat.

“Applications are received and paid continuously throughout the year,” he said in a statement last night.

He noted that of the 70 already paid, one member had already received their payment over nine years ago on February 5, 2007.

Mohd Anwar also refuted Rafizi’s claim that LTAT’s 2014 year-end balance of RM561 million was an “uncomfortable” figure as contributions to veterans for the year was RM1 billion.

To this, Mohd Anwar said LTAT recorded a profit of RM1.015 billion for 2014, which was the highest since its inception, and that the balance at the end of the year was after gratuity payouts of RM982.9 million were already made throughout the year.

“It is unreasonable and illogical to compare the sum of gratuity payments made throughout the year against the cash balance at the end of 2014,” he said.

Rafizi had also claimed that LTAT’s pumping in of RM198 million into its subsidiary Perbadanan Perwira Hartanah Malaysia (PPHM) for the Pangkalan Udara Kuala Lumpur relocation construction was due to late payments by 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) for the project.

In response, Mohd Anwar said that with PPHM being a wholly owned subsidiary corporation of LTAT that undertakes a number of significant high value infrastructure as well as property development projects, it was a normal course of business to inject working capital.

“Regardless of this, the fact of the matter is, as at to date, payments by 1MDB to PPHM have been fulfilled on schedule and PPHM being the turnkey contractor for 1MDB on the PUKL project has in turn paid all its subcontractors on amounts due as per contract,” he added.

“Moreover, we would like to stress that LTAT’s accounts are audited by Jabatan Audit Negara and tabled in Parliament.”

He said that the allegations were “slanderous and motivated by malicious intent, with a view to impact the good reputation and credibility of LTAT.”

“Given that, once again, there is no truth in YB Rafizi’s allegations, LTAT has commenced legal action against him,” he said.

Rafizi had last week released what he claimed was a page from the Auditor-General’s classified report on 1MDB, which he said showed that the state investment firm’s financial position was affecting LTAT.

He expressed hope that 1MDB president Arul Kanda Kandasamy will be investigated by police as soon as possible over the police report the PKR lawmaker lodged against 1MDB and Arul over the LTAT ties.

This was after Arul’s announcement that he will soon leave 1MDB, citing that his job has been done.