MP SPEAKS After a week of intense adverse publicity, including ludicrous pronouncements by Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar and Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi about missing weapons “falling into the sea”, Malaysians remain in the dark.

What has happened to the RM1.33 million worth of police assets, including 44 firearms, 156 handcuffs and 29 vehicles, "lost" between 2010 and 2012, as revealed by the 2012 Auditor-General’s Report. And, whether, and how many, of these police assets have really “fallen into the sea”?

NONEYesterday, an online news report quoted the Federal Special Task Force (Operations and Counter-Terrorism) director Mohamad Fuzi Harun as saying that one of the 44 missing guns was snatched from a policeman by a thief.

Although this would account for one of the 44 missing guns, the immediate question that arises is why the policeman had taken more than a year to report that his gun was taken away by a snatch thief.

A high-level committee, headed by the chief secretary to the government Dr Ali Hamsa and comprising the Public Service director-general, attorney-general, as well as representatives from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), Finance Ministry and Royal Malaysian Police has been formed to scrutinise the 2012 Auditor-General’s Report.

It is therefore best that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak should present a white paper to Parliament on Oct 21 to tell Malaysians what happened to the RM1.33 million worth of police assets, including all the 44 “missing firearms” that have gone missing – based on the initial findings of this scrutiny committee.

NONENajib’s white paper should also enlighten Malaysians on the latest updates about the many “horror tales” of corruption, wastage, abuse of power and negligence uncovered by the 2012 Auditor-General’s Report, such as:

The imprudent establishment of the RM175 million Police Air Wing with five Beechcraft King Air 350 aircraft;

  • The RM1.6 million expenditure by Youth and Sports Ministry to bring in three South Korean pop groups for the National Youth Day celebrations last year in contrast to the claim that the cost had been covered by sponsors;
  • Failure by Public Works Department to recover RM15.77 million in performance bonds despite terminating 21 government projects;
  • The building of the RM73 million Malacca Customs and Immigration Quarantine Complex (CIQ) on private land, resulting in a RM10.8 million compensation to the landowner;
  • The RM303,813 travel claim by a Communications and Culture Ministry senior officer for a four-day study trip to Geneva which the auditors felt was worth only RM50,000;
  • Waste of RM199 million spent on construction of four incinerators by the National Solid Waste Management Department as there was no expertise to operate such machines once they were built;
  • The government access payment of RM11.6 million for Emergency Response Services (MERS) 999; and

If Najib is unable to present a white paper on the latest updates of government actions taken on the audit report findings when Parliament reconvenes on Oct 21, then the prime minister-cum-finance minister must explain to Parliament what is the purpose and utility of establishing the high-level scrutiny committee on the 2012 Auditor-General’s Report headed by the chief secretary.

LIM KIT SIANG is Member of Parliament for Gelang Patah, Johor.

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