KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 1): The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday (Aug 1) expressed its regrets over the government's action to not fully declassify the Special Investigation Committee on Public Governance, Procurement and Finance (JKSTUPKK) report related to the Automatic Enforcement System (AES).
“The report attached together with the PAC report — the Ministry of Transport's follow-up action regarding the AES — was presented in Parliament on Monday, proving that the Government, especially the Prime Minister's Department (PMD), does not respect the institution of Parliament, especially the PAC.
“The rakyat can judge for themselves the actions of the Government, which was acting 'acuh tidak acuh' (unconcerned) to the recommendation of the PAC, which is also the Dewan Rakyat Select Committee, to completely declassify the JKSTUPKK report,” said PAC chairman Wong Kah Woh in a statement.
Wong noted that the act of redacting part of the report that had nothing to do with aspects of national security or sensitive policies was “clearly childish” and “demeaning” to Parliament.
The Ipoh Timor Member of Parliament said the PAC plays a role in providing accurate and authentic information to the rakyat regarding the AES issue, and it is important for the rakyat to evaluate the content of the JKSTUPKK report for themselves.
“When the PAC presented this committee's report regarding the AES on Nov 23, 2021, its first recommendation was for this JKSUPKK report, which was placed as top secret, to be declassified.
“However, the PMD, which chose to classify the report, failed to declassify it when attending the Ministry's follow-up action proceedings on March 23 this year. The PMD's attitude was reprimanded by the PAC during the proceedings,” he said.
Wong added that while the act of declassifying the JKSTUPKK report was done on July 8, the declassification of the report was not done completely.
“Instead, information related to the names of the perpetrators was redacted. It is very ridiculous when the names of the companies involved, namely Beta Tegap Sdn Bhd and ATES Sdn Bhd, have become public knowledge, and the names of the ministers are redacted,” he said.
When the Pakatan Harapan government came to power in 2018, it set up the Special Investigation Committee on Public Governance, Procurement and Finance, and parked it under the PMD.
The committee was headed by former auditor-general Tan Sri Ambrin Buang, who took up, investigated and reported on about 15 questionable cases in a space of less than two years.
However, there was a catch as most of the 15 reports were classified under the Official Secrets Act 1972 (OSA), and are not available for scrutiny. This comes across as odd as the OSA is generally used in matters of national security, defence or international relations.
Wong, who has served as the PAC chairman since August 2020, has taken up many of Ambrin’s reports and acted on them.
“The reports are good. He (Ambrin) has done a very good job. They are very thick (detailed) reports,” Wong told The Edge in an exclusive interview. The article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia weekly on Jan 10 to Jan 16, 2022.
“We at the PAC looked at all the reports, [and] we asked Tan Sri Ambrin to give us a briefing. We thought that if the PAC did not take up these reports, and we produced our own reports, the investigations [conducted] by Tan Sri Ambrin would have gone down the drain [and be wasted],” added Wong.
Some of the cases Ambrin investigated have since been taken on and highlighted by the PAC.
One is Putrajaya’s directive to Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera (LTAT) in 2015 to take over the AES on roads from project owners ATES and Beta Tegap, in what was deemed to be an inflated price tag of RM555 million.
This came after the PAC on Nov 23, 2021 said Putrajaya’s directive in 2014 for the LTAT to take over the AES for RM555 million was an “indirect bailout by the Government”.
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