AUCMS founder seeks help from Najib

Datuk Dr Zainuddin Wazir, founder and president of Allianze University College of Medical Sciences (AUCMS), has appealed to the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Mohamed Najib Razak to consider immediate solutions such as short term financial aids to allow the university to resume operations quickly.

In an official statement, Zainuddin expressed that he would rather have the students return to the university to continue their studies instead of having them dispersed to other institutes of higher learning.

AUCMS purchased a former campus of Middlesex University in Trent Park in North London.

Since September, Zainuddin has been based in London to facilitate the sale of the campus, a former campus of Middlesex University, bought at the cost of RM146 million but had immediately run into cash-flow problems. Regarding the non payment of staff, Zainuddin's retort was that  the current issue is financial and not mismanagement.

EXIM Bank Malaysia facilitated the purchase of the London campus. However the bank only gave a part of the total sum.

"The failure to get the full sum meant that the campus could not function as planned. However, the interest payment was still required although the purchased property could not be used as planned and could not generate income as expected. This has resulted in serious financial crisis for AUCMS," he explained.

In his appeal, he included agencies such as Exim Bank, ARB, MARA, SmeBank, JPA, and the Ministry of Education to inject short term funds to help them recover their financial problems.