Three months after the floods, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Shahidan Kassim said the balance of over RM400 million from the allocated disaster funds were safely kept in government funds.

He explained this during his wrap-up speech to a query posed by Anthony Loke (DAP-Seremban) who demanded to know what had happened to the balance of the RM800 million allocated flood relief funds.

“Don’t worry. How would over RM400 million go missing just like that? We still have that money in funds,” the National Disaster Committee chairperson told the Dewan Rakyat today.

Loke previously quizzed Putrajaya on the whereabouts of the fund balance when pointing out that only RM338 million of the total by the federal government had been accounted for.

Meanwhile, Shahidan also clarified that the government did not declare a state of emergency during what was dubbed one of the worst floods to hit the country, as it wouldn’t have made a difference in the deployment of assets and military personnel.

“There would have been no difference if we declared emergency. Because we did not declare emergency, so many NGOs were present.

“Emergency or not, even all the soldiers were there. The military kitchens were operational in almost all the worst-hit areas to help feed those displaced by the floods,” he added.

Reiterating that the government took sufficient steps to deal with the floods, Shahidan said “the flood victims were given a royal treatment”.

Even some of the foreign tourists that were stuck in the floods were impressed with the government’s swift actions which adhered by “proper standard operating procedures (SOP) and good preparations”.

“I was even told by one of the foreign tourists that the government handled the floods well. They said they wouldn't have gotten a chance to ride in a helicopter if it wasn’t for the floods,” he said.

The floods that hit the east coast end of last year had claimed 25 lives and affected over one million people.

With a quarter million people evacuated and billions of ringgit lost, it was one of the worst floods the country has seen in 70 years.