Parliamentary committee wants graft probe on school security system
The Malay Mail Online – 1 hour 17 minutes agoRELATED CONTENT
- Public Accounts Committee chairman, Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed said the PAC had found …
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 14 — A key parliamentary committee has called for the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) to investigate the Education Ministry’s decision to spend RM2.051 billion to beef up security in national schools.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found many weaknesses in the project, including employing incompetent companies to run operations, costing taxpayers RM800 million a year, Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed who heads the committee told a press conference.
“We want thorough investigation into this including MACC action,” he said but acknowledged that the ministry’s “efforts” to explain the issues has been satisfactory
“PAC is just suggesting… there may be element of graft so that is why we are asking the MACC to investigate that. Suspicion of corruption element was actually based on news report by The Star,” he said, referring to the English daily.
Nur Jazlan said the committee’s report on the matter was distributed to MPs today.
In the report, PAC said the project was implemented poorly with some of the companies employed having failed to adhere to terms in the contracts and disciplinary issues.
The report also cited the ministry for poor contract management that resulted in cost discrepancies and incompetent payment collection.
Nur Jazlan said the Home Ministry will be summoned to explain the matter as issues relating to security companies fall under its purview.
“PAC will call the Home Ministry to explain matters relating to quality, discipline and qualification of the security guards, the licensing as well as employment of foreigners,” he said.
The Auditor-General’s 2012 report released in October last year found that the education ministry had failed to properly manage the private security contractors hired to keep schools nationwide secure despite a budget of over RM3 billion.
According to the report, the ministry has so far spent RM2.051 billion, or just over half of its RM3.689 billion budget set aside from 2010 to 2012, to beef up security in schools and public learning institutes, but implementation has been unsatisfactory.
The annual cost of the programme is RM812 million. Among the issues raised by the A-G include the poor execution of security services, such as a lack of monitoring at entry and exit points at school premises.
The report noted that insufficient guards were hired, while those hired included guards who exceeded the age limit or had not presented health or background security checks.
The ministry was also found to have approved contracts without having first received the implementation bonds, and approved and paid out claims to contractors despite having received incomplete service implementation reports.
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