Auditor-general finds abuse of funds in National Professors Council

The National Professors Council (NPC), a government-funded council of professors at Malaysian universities, has been found to have abused its funding, the Auditor-General Department found.

This includes paying large allowances totalling RM207,000 to the permanent chairperson and deputy chairperson without ministerial approval.

The auditors also found that RM373,516 of NPC funds were used to pay the operations of two companies owned by board of trustee members.

The members did not declare their interests in the company, Auditor-General Wan Suraya Wan Mohd Radzi said in a press statement announcing the latest audit report today.

The audit’s scope is for activities from 2019 to 2023.

The NPC is an entity under the Prime Minister’s Department which reports to the higher education minister. The minister serves as NPC adviser.

The Dr Mahathir Mohamad administration had in 2018 ordered the outfit to be shuttered but the NPC continued operating independently before it was recognised again by the Ismail Sabri Yaakob government in Nov 2021.

According to the NPC website, its chairperson since 2019 is UKM anthropologist Shamsul Amri Baharuddin while UUM political scientist Mohamed Mustafa Ishak is deputy chairperson.

Response did not address issue

In the audit report, the flagged payment to the chairperson and deputy chairperson - who are not named in the document - were for their permanent allowances over the course of 23 months from March 2022 to January this year.

They received RM5,000 and RM4,000 per month respectively for a total of RM115,000 for the chairperson and RM92,000 for the deputy chairperson.

The board of trustees were only informed of the matter in March 2023. 

Later in December that year, the board recommended amendments to the NPC charter regarding the payment of allowances but this has yet to be implemented.

In a response to the audit that was included in the report, the NPC did not address the issue that the payments were made without ministerial approval.

Instead, the council only said the request to pay board members’ allowances had been tabled in the March 2023 meeting.

It also said the amendments to the NPC charter had been done by the company secretary but that the council was awaiting approval from the relevant parties.

NPC president approved own salary increments

The audit also flagged issues with the salary increments and payment of allowances to the NPC president, who is also its chief executive officer.

The NPC president from 2019 to present is UiTM board of directors chairperson Raduan Che Rose.

The audit found that increments of 10 percent per annum for senior management in 2022 and 2023 were approved by the president-cum-CEO and affirmed by the chairperson without the necessary board approval.

In total, RM46,000 and RM16,000 were paid to the NPC president-cum-CEO as well as the chief operating officer respectively from April 2022 to Jan 2024 without the board of trustees’ approval.

The current NPC COO is Mara Poly-Tech professor Md Yusoff Taib.

Likewise, the audit found that during the same period, payments of RM3,000 per month for fixed allowances to the NPC president - totalling RM66,000 - were also not approved by the board.

The NPC’s service scheme manual only allocates RM400 per month in fixed allowances for senior management.

The NPC in response said that the president’s allowances had been agreed to and that it would be updating the manual and seeking board approval.

On the issue of payments to two companies, the audit noted that companies - which are not named - were formed to help generate income for the NPC.

The NPC told the audit that this was in response to the council losing government support in 2018.

Both companies were majority-owned by the board of trustee’s secretary-general, who is also the NPC president-cum-CEO, and the former deputy secretary-general.

The identity of the former deputy secretary-general could not be ascertained.

The audit department also found multiple issues with NPC’s corporate management including not verifying expenses charged to corporate credit cards, and payments totalling RM399,000 as honorariums to five research fellows whose performance could not be ascertained as no targets and achievements were set.

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