(AFP) - KUALA LUMPUR, March 20, 2001

A Malaysian opposition leader Tuesday filed a complaint with police that the state employees' pension fund had become a "bailout fund" for a politically well-connected firm.

The Kumpulan Wang Amanah Pencen (KWAP) had "acted most imprudently and recklessly" in buying a 10.82 percent stake in Time dotCom for 903.74 million ringgit (238 million dollars) or at 3.30 ringgit a share, said Democratic Action Party chairman Lim Kit Siang.

In a statement, Lim said Time dotCom shares had fallen to 2.04 ringgit, down 38.2 percent from its initial price offer (IPO) of 3.30 ringgit at the close of trade Monday.

This meant that the KWAP had lost an "astronomical sum of 345 million ringgit" on paper in six days of trading, he added.

Lim urged police to investigate a "possible criminal breach of trust and misapplication of public funds" by the KWAP for buying the stock at its IPO price when it was widely expected to fall after its public listing.

"The KWAP should explain without any further delay why it had jeopardised the pensions and gratuities of 850,000 civil servants by being the bailor-of-last-resort for the Time dotCom IPO fiasco," he added.

Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin told reporters Tuesday that the KWAP had invested in the Time dotCom shares as a "sub-underwriter" but declined to comment further.

Lim filed a similar complaint with police last week against the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) for holding a 3.22 percent stake in Time dotCom.

Apart from KWAP and EPF, the asset management agency Pengurusan Danaharta Nasional Bhd. also admitted it held a 3.16 percent stake in Time dotCom after taking over Time Engineering's non-performing loans.

Time dotCom is a unit of Time Engineering, which in turn is 47 percent owned by the debt-laden but politically well-connected conglomerate Renong.

Time dotCom's IPO flopped in February with applications for only a quarter of the 572 million shares. The IPO was fully underwritten despite analysts' opinions that the stock was greatly overvalued.