The total bill for the Youth and Sports Ministry's 2012 Youth Day event appears to be endlessly ballooning, from RM55 million in June to RM67.61 million now.

Bukit Mertajam MP Steven Sim said this based on the latest Auditor General's Report revelation of yet another RM12.61 million that had been spent on an "assistance programme".

australian councillors on psm six 240711 steven simSim (right) in June called on Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin to explain how the original bill of RM15.2 million for the event, which featured the notorious K-Pop concert, ended up ringing up RM55 million.

"It seems that wasn't the whole story. According to the Auditor General's Report, the ministry spent RM12.61 million on an assistance programme.

"The funds were channelled to the organiser of the 2012 Youth Day through sports bodies such as the Malaysian Youth Council (Feedback report on key issues, para 16.5.2.5.f on page 183)," said Sim.

He pointed out that report also noted that because of this act "the total actual expenditure of the 2012 Youth Day as reported by the Ministry was under reported".

"The Youth and Sports Ministry needs to be transparent and to answer for this honestly," he said.

Yesterday it was revealed that the ministry appears disingenuous in earlier claiming that the RM1.6 million for the K-Pop groups were paid by sponsors, when the audit report revealed the money had come from the ministry's pockets.

Then sports minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek however stood by his stand today that the money paid by the ministry had come from sponsors.

Sim, who is also Penang DAP Youth publicity secretary, repeated his call for Khairy to explain the cost increases and furnish a complete itemised breakdown of the event's expenditure.

"And this time I want to add one more question: are there any other hidden costs by the ministry before they report it to the public?" he quipped.

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