Dr Koh: ‘corruption persists’; CBA delays Senate appearance

The former chief medical officer of CBA’s insurance arm has told senators that “corruption persists” at the bank.

The Commonwealth Bank has put off its appearance before a Senate inquiry. Picture: Bloomberg

The former chief medical officer of Commonwealth Bank’s insurance arm has described the bank’s excuse for his dismissal as “farcical”, telling a Senate inquiry that “corruption persists” at CBA.

Benjamin Koh, the former chief medical officer at Comm­Insure who blew the whistle on systemic denial of claims, tampering of customer medical records and procedural failure at CBA’s insurance arm, told a Senate inquiry yesterday CBA could not be trusted to run its own review into the scandal. After being ignored then sacked when he raised his concerns, Dr Koh took his claims to the media, which were exposed in a Four Corners program.

On Wednesday, CBA released a submission to the Senate economics committee investigating the allegations, in which it claimed Dr Koh was sacked because he sent emails with confidential client information to his personal Gmail account.

Dr Koh said the statement by CBA was a confected excuse for sacking him, saying he had direct permission to send the client emails to himself to work at his personal office.

“They claim they terminated my employment for sending emails to myself. What CBA failed to mention was that prior to me doing so I was granted permission to do so by my manager ... to maintain good productivity.

“Secondly, sending information to an employee email was common practice within Comm­Insure itself. Many legal investigations and claims contractors have done so for at least the past 10 years, but nobody had been fired for this.”

Dr Koh said the claim by the bank was “farcical” given he was a doctor and had to investigate customer medical records.

“As a doctor my role requires I review medical information. That is my job. Part of that information would include financial information, but I question what I have to gain in terms of commercial advantage in having those files? Nothing.”

The bank has since announced the appointment of an independent professional to oversee an expert review program.

CBA vowed to review its whistleblower protections following Dr Koh’s allegations and a series of scandals at the bank, including financial planners, that sparked a Senate inquiry.

The Australian recently revealed that a former CBA IT manager was sacked after warning colleagues that an IT deal at the centre of a bribery scandal made no sense and should not proceed. Two of the bank’s most senior IT managers now face criminal charges for allegedly accepting millions of dollars in bribes from an American software entrepreneur in exchange for CBA software contracts.

Dr Koh said there was no way CBA could be trusted to conduct a review of CommInsure or the treatment of whistleblowers at the bank because the same people, including chief executive Ian Narev, were still in charge.

“Why is this being repeated again and again? It’s because the same people are sitting in those positions when all these scandals occurred ... the CEO and the board are exactly the same as in Comm­Insure. We had the same people behaving the same way right from the top and the fish rots from the head down.

“How do you expect to change it by doing the things the same way and expecting something different to come of it? It’s lunacy.”

Mr Narev was due to appear in front of the inquiry yesterday but the CBA cancelled its appearance, claiming it did not have enough time to prepare for the hearing. Instead CBA offered to appear early next week — coinciding with the federal budget.

Committee chairman and Labor senator Chris Ketter attacked Mr Narev’s no-show.

“We cannot have a hearing at the same time as the budget. The victims of CommInsure deserve a voice, and the bank evidently needs to be held to account for yet another scandal,” the Senator said in a statement.

“Mr Narev has repeatedly claimed that the bank was committed to being ethical, but there is nothing ethical about the bank’s attempts to dodge proper public scrutiny.”