PKR Youth has questioned whether the New Affirmative Action Movement (Naam) Foundation chaired by Deputy Youth and Sports Minister M Saravanan is going to be yet another scandal for the MIC, like the infamous Maika Holdings scheme.

"PKR Youth stresses that MIC has already got a bad name through the Maika Holdings scheme that continues to haunt all.

"Now, it seems there may be another scandal, if the allegations are true," PKR Youth central committee member Jestin Raj Savarimuthu said in a statement.

Maika Holdings was an MIC initiative in the 1980s to help uplift the Indian poor via investments, with the party-managed firm collecting more than RM100 million from Indians, many of whom took out their savings to invest.

The company ended up losing money instead, purportedly from mismanagement.

Jestin Raj referred to the written parliamentary reply from the Youth and Sports Ministry to Batu Gajah MP V Sivakumar, which noted that RM19 million was channelled by the ministry to NAAM.

He said the revelation, which came a mere 10 days after news broke that the same ministry's officers were involved in misappropriating funds , may lead to another big scandal if it is proven to involve corruption.

Conflict of interest

Jestin Raj questioned how the much money could be given to NAAM when Saravanan, who is its chairperson, is also the deputy minister at the ministry.

He noted that this was not the first time concerns were raised about the NGO, pointing to reports to police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) by former MIC strategy director AK Ramalingam over the matter last year.

Saravanan has denied any conflict of interest in the matter.

While no action has been taken, Jestin Raj believed that this may be a case of double standards.

"Can we imagine if an NGO chaired by an opposition politician received a large amount of money from a state government. Will Umno and BN keep quiet?" he asked.

Formed in November 2013, NAAM, like Maika, was supposed uplift the economic standing of 100,000 Indian youths in the country within four years from its founding.

However, Jestin Raj noted, according to the Youth and Sports Ministry, only 129 Indian youths have been assisted to start agricultural projects by Naam into its fourth year.

He said that Saravanan himself had also said that the money is from the Prime Minister's Department, not from the Youth and Sports Ministry.

"We demand that a full investigation is undertaken to identify the culprits behind the (possible) scandal as it involves public money," the PKR Youth central committee member added.