PKA board ‘just went blindly along’
(NST) KUALA LUMPUR: The Port Klang Authority (PKA) board members believed blindly in whatever was told to them by the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) management, said Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid.
He said PAC found that the government representatives on the board depended solely on the information provided to them by the management.
"We found that they (former board members from the government) had access only to whatever information was provided them by the board chairman, who in turn got his information from the PKFZ board. Many things were not questioned in an in-depth way," he said after chairing the PAC meeting in Parliament House here.
"There was too much trust. They followed whatever they were told."
He also noted that PKA general manager Datin Paduka O.C. Phang was also the PKFZ executive chairman until May last year.
She is slated to be interviewed by the PAC next week.
At yesterday's meeting, the PAC interviewed nine civil servants, from the Transport Ministry, Finance Ministry and Economic Planning Unit (EPU), who represented the government on the PKA board.
They were Datuk Zakaria Bahari and D. Chandrasekaran (transport), Mohd Ismail, Datuk Abdul Rahim Mokti, V. Ravindran and Mohd Zainuddin Ahmad Rashidi (finance) and Zubir Abdul Aziz, Nor Rizan Mohd Thani and Mohamad Nor Taib (EPU).
Azmi said it was not the intention of the PAC to investigate the government representatives but the committee wanted to find out how the information flow between the PKA board members and PKFZ management worked.
"We want to know whether certain decisions were made with the full knowledge of the PKA board. It is obvious that many decisions were made without their full knowledge."
He said the government officers' tenure on the PKA board was limited as they would be gone once they were transferred.
"Some were there for a year (on the board) while others were there slightly longer. So they might not have fully understood the situation. Some did not even attend all board meetings, so they might not have known what they were endorsing."
He said current PKA chairman Datuk Lee Hwa Beng has been summoned to brief the committee today on the findings of the special task force.
He also said PKFZ turnkey developer, Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd, would be interviewed next week.
