PAC: Payments made to PKFZ contractor without approval
(The Star) KUALA LUMPUR: Payments worth millions of ringgit were made to the main turnkey project contractor of Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) without the prior approval and knowledge of the Port Klang Authority’s (PKA) board, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found.
PAC chairman Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid said the board of directors did not give PKA the green light to make payments to the contractor for its expenditure and claims.
However, Azmi said, this anomaly might be due to some form of delegation of powers by the board to the PKA management, which was then headed by Datin Paduka OC Phang.
“There were many decisions made involving contracts and agreements that had been signed first by the management before the board was informed.
“The board was unaware of a lot of things, and did not receive the information it was supposed to receive or was only told about PKA’s management decision after it had been taken.
“The board did ask for additional information, but it either received them late or not at all,” he told reporters after chairing the PAC meeting on the PKFZ at the Parliament House yesterday.
The PAC interviewed former PKA chairmen Tan Sri Dr Ting Chew Peh and Datuk Yap Pian Hon yesterday.
The two were the last people to be interviewed, and the PAC is expected to file its report to Parliament next month.
Dr Ting had served as PKA chairman from 2001 to 2004, while Yap was chairman from 2004 to early 2007.
Azmi said Yap had told the PAC it was untrue that the government representatives in the PKA board had been silent.
“Yap said that during his tenure there, the board members were active in raising many questions on the PKFZ project and the PKA management had responded well to them.”
Azmi said that during Dr Ting’s chairmanship of PKA, the board did not discuss matters that were not brought up by the management.
When met by reporters later, Dr Ting said that about 20% to 30% of the PKFZ project was under way when he took over the PKA chairmanship.
“Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had mooted the PKFZ project, and we worked hard to make Port Klang one of the top 10 ports in the world,” he added.
Yap told reporters that he and the board members had done “national service” to ensure the success of the PKFZ project, saying his chairmanship allowance was RM2,259.95 per month, while the board members received RM500.
