Tourism Minister Azalina Othman has been strongly reminded to present the “overdue” independent audit report on Pempena Sdn Bhd - a subsidiary of her ministry which is under fire over financial improprieties involving millions of ringgit.

parliament pandikar amin anwar ibrahim lim kit siang dap pkr pc 121108 04 DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang who had questioned the minister about this in Parliament last Monday, raised the issue again when he spoke to reporters today.

“This is to remind Azalina that it is more than a week since her promise in Parliament to table the PriceWaterhouseCooper report on the various financial scandals on Pempena,” he said.

“When replying to me last Monday, the minister said the independent audit report would be ready two days later, on Wednesday, and I specifically reminded her to keep her undertaking to present the report in Parliament.”

On Nov 3, while Azalina was winding up on points related to her ministry in the Budget 2009 debate, Lim sought answers about the irregularities.

Azalina had replied that she had received a draft copy of the report, produced by the independent auditing firm that her ministry had hired to probe the Pempena transactions.

She also admitted that the subsidiary had indeed been involved in some questionable projects and undertook to release a full report on Nov 5 to the House. However, she has yet to do so.

Dubious deals worth millions

Malaysiakini on July 2 had exposed irregularities based on a memorandum by dissatisfied Pempena staff who accused two senior company officials of graft and criminal breach of trust.

In the document - a copy of which was forwarded to Azalina - employees related decisions by the duo which had diverted millions of ringgit from tourism-development funds into private pockets.

Among them was the money-losing Pempena Taxi Services and an expensive e-tourism portal.

A separate media report alleged the minister herself abused her power by hiring 20 of her ‘supporters’ for her office, in breach of Public Service Department (PSD) rules. A minister is only allowed eight staff-members.

umno supreme council special meeting 260809 azalina othman Azalina has defended herself by stating that she had appointed only eight employees in her office, and that the rest had been employed by Pempena.

"I have employed eight staff (for my office) just as stipulated by PSD and as for the staff in Pempena, it is a company (and does not fall within the jurisdiction of the PSD)," she told Parliament last week.

She did not clarify if the Pempena staff mentioned included her ‘supporters’ but she emphasised that they were there in lieu of the “wide aspects of future investments Pempena is getting involved with”.