Association to act against daily over wrongful reporting

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) is planning to take legal action against a newspaper for wrongful reporting. MATTA chairman Datuk Khalid Harun claimed that the English daily had made various errors in its article on the association on Dec 13. “The article not only carried wrong facts but also made wrongful use of the names of some our office bearers, both past and present to imply that things were not done according to MATTA’s constitution,” Khalid said yesterday. Khalid said their lawyers have been instructed to demand documents from the newspaper to verify the article.
“We have referred this matter to our solicitors who have issued a letter demanding inter-alia documents to support the contents of the articles. We are also seeking proper apologies,” he said.
If the newspaper refused to meet MATTA’s demand, he said, the association then would take legal action against it.

Khalid said the source of the article was believed to be a former MATTA office bearer but declined to give more details. The newspaper article among others claimed that the association of 2,800 agencies risked being de-registered by the Registrar of Societies (ROS) due to a “power tussle and alleged discrepancies in its operations”. Khalid said the report was erroneous and that the association was never at risk of being de-registered. “Even the ROS had to wait for a court order to determine that this committee is the legitimate one,” he said.

A court order in August had decided that MATTA’s AGM in June last year was null and void after discrepancies in the membership rolls for the AGM was disclosed. This led to the suspension of Datuk Dr Joshua Peter Tan who was elected MATTA president in the June AGM and for organising an illegal EGM last December. The court had also appointed former president Datuk Ngiam Foon as caretaker president. Fresh elections were called on Jan 7 which saw Khalid being elected president. Khalid also said that the association’s membership had been cleaned up since unconfirmed or “phantom” members were discovered in last year’s AGM.
-thestar online.