PKR Youth chief Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad today said police investigations against National Oversight and Whistleblowers (NOW) director Akmal Nasrullah Mohd Nasir is a sign that authorities are still out to protect individuals implicated with alleged abuse of public funds.

"It is clear there are still attempts to protect individuals who abused their powers by investigating any persons who expose the matter, rather than investigating what has been exposed," he said in a statement.

Expressing regret over the investigations against Akmal, he said the authorities should stop harassing whistleblowers and focus on investigating the alleged abuses.

Inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar yesterday confirmed that police have opened an investigation following a report filed against Akmal by the Malaysian Islamic Economic Development Foundation (Yapeim) director-general Abdullah Samsudin.

"In this case, the authenticity of all the information exposed by NOW have been verified by Yapeim, so why the need to investigate how it was procured?"

"Are the authorities hoping the public will never know about this information?" asked Nik Nazmi ( photo ), who pointed out the rakyat has a right to find out how their donations are being spent.

Abdullah, in his police report on Nov 18, stated that Akmal obtained leaked documents with regard to Yapeim's alleged abuse of funds, through illegal means.

Yapeim's legal director Mohd Nasir Disa also reportedly said while the documents are genuine, the information does not show the whole picture on how the funds were spent.

For example, Mohd Nasir said, NOW leaked documents showed that federal minister Jamil Khir Baharom visited Iowa and Minnesota in the US, but those plans were later scrapped.

He added this was reflected in later documents, which are not part of what NOW leaked.

Meanwhile, Abdullah said today that an internal investigation was being conducted by Yapeim on the leak.