This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on June 7, 2018

PUTRAJAYA: Former auditor-general Tan Sri Ambrin Buang will head a special investigation committee on procurements, governance and finance, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said yesterday.

In a media briefing after his weekly cabinet meeting, Dr Mahathir said the committee will start off by investigating procurements made by the defence ministry.

The ministry had been involved in questionable deals, including the €1.2 billion Scorpene submarines from France in 2002, the privatisation of some 40,000ha of land to three persons without an open tender, and the disappearance of two air force fighter jet spare engines worth RM50 million each from the Sungai Besi airbase in 2008.

Ambrin held the auditor-general’s post for 11 years from 2006 to February 2017.

Dr Mahathir also said that the government is going to review the current lending terms for housing loans and look at introducing a mechanism to facilitate young Malaysians to buy their first home.

“We found out that banks are too strict with housing loans and this makes it difficult to own a house.

“We will be studying the current housing loan terms and revise it to introduce a certain mechanism to enable first-time house buyers to get their homes with less hassle,” he said.

When asked if the relaxation of the housing loan policies could lead to a housing bubble, he said the government is looking into the matter.  

“Now it is zero-rated GST (goods and services tax) but we will abolish GST when parliament meets. We are looking into this ... we have some idea on how to reduce the cost of housing. We will explain this later,” he said.

Dr Mahathir also said that the economic affairs ministry and the human resources ministry would table cabinet papers soon on the proposed restructuring and coordination of functions of skills training institutes under several ministries to prevent waste.

“At the same time, this will maximise efforts to provide training to young people,” he was quoted as saying by Bernama.

The prime minister also said that the meeting of the Special Cabinet Committee on Indian Community would be held soon to tackle the issues faced by the community.

On education, Dr Mahathir said a committee involving non-governmental experts would be set up to review the national education curriculum starting from pre-school to university level.

“This will take into consideration the curriculum from other countries, which will cover other aspects, such as civic awareness,” he said.

On the disbanded Land Public Transport Commission, he said the cabinet had decided that the functions of the commission would be taken over by the Land Public Transport Agency, under the transport ministry’s preview.