The Daily Express’s Sunday edition front page headline screamed ‘Impossible Shafie didn’t know’ (Oct 9, 2016). Maybe former minister Shafie Apdal knows but he is not telling at this point in time. So if he really did not know, then ask Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak who would know because there was a Bernama press report entitled ‘New Water Supply Development Project to cost RM52 billion - Samy’ dated Feb 20, 2004 for peninsula Malaysia for 2000-2050.

Then-deputy PM Najib then made another press statement titled ‘Najib: RM25bil for water works’ by Nick Leong in The Star where it was reported “More than RM25bil will be spent over the next 50 years to replace and upgrade pipelines, storage tanks, and water treatment plants, said DPM Najib”. This additional portion of RM25 billion making it RM77 bilion and part of that would be extended to Sabah and Sarawak.

So how much of the approved RM77 billion had been disbursed from 2000 until 2016?

For the Sabah portion since 2010 of RM3.3 billion, the auditor-general should have done a full audit on the expenditure allocated. Did the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) go into the water department as alerted by the auditor-general? Don’t the Sabah Water Department prepare proper annual accounts?

A news report titled ‘Sabah gets top marks for financial Management’ in the New Sabah Times, on Dec 5, 2015 reported that Sabah was awarded four stars from the auditor-general for three consecutive years from 2012-2014.

Why wasn’t the water graft case involving such a massive amount not detected when the RM3.3 billion was allocated from Kuala Lumpur/Putrajaya which should have been monitored by the Federal Audit Department even for a State Water Department? With this development, the auditor-general has apparently failed the whole nation as I know that since I used to work for a short spell in the Federal Audit Deaprtment based in Kota Kinabalu.

How much of the RM3.3 billion actually arrived in Sabah? If the state Water Department maintained proper accounts, it would be revealed instantly, even after a few years.

It is indeed very disturbing that ‘60 percent of the project allocation has been stolen’ as reported and that is nearly RM2 billion stolen, while MACC so far only managed to discover and seize RM300 million.

Looking at it at another angle, the RM300 million could be from the portion of 40 percent that arrived in Sabah. So which is which? Was RM2 billion stolen before it arrived in Sabah? If Najib cannot explain, then it is like a ‘Sabah mini-version of1MDB’ as a substantial sum of money has sort of disappeared and is unaccounted for.

‘Gov’t must be made accountable’

Would MACC really go into the depth of ‘Ops Water’? Would a White Paper be presented in Parliament of all the money so far disbursed of the total RM77 billion? If 60 percent of the allocation so far disbursed nationwide was allegedly stolen, then the government must be made accountable.

Have we sensed something like irrelevance for decades now? Chief Minister Musa Aman has urged an immediate review on procurement procedures, monitoring and financial management of all state departments and agencies particularly those involving allocations and funds outside the state budget. State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Masidi Manjun has said he has, in fact, urged this on various occasions?

Chief secretary to the government Ali Hamza said “this water graft was an isolated case while almost all the other public servants had integrity”. What kind of impression/message would this denial statement provide? If this is an isolated case, then would MACC be expected to proceed to create more ‘havoc’ of this kind of its own for its own agenda after being allegedly ‘dormant’ for decades?

Would MACC this time around do a similar performance to record busts of graft in other places in Malaysia where rumours of even greater corruption are rampant, too?

Sabah has been in Malaysia for 53 years and yet we still face such faulty systems, when corruption is borderless and allegedly endless in Malaysia for decades.

I am sure the prime minister-cum-finance minister should know everything as the Sabah water project commenced in 2010 soon after Najib became PM in 2009.

In view of the ill-gotten gains recovered so far of RM300 million and maybe more in the pipeline, the money seized by MACC meant for water project in Sabah must be returned to the Water Department to continue to improve the water needs urgently in Sabah and not returned to federal coffers and I quote, “On the cash and other funds recovered, Azam of MACC said if the court found the money to be ill-gotten, it would be returned to the government”.

The developments on ‘Ops Water’ would be closely observed by the public and should not be swept under the carpet as pressure could be piling from some quarters for a quick premature end.