Kuala Selangor D.O. aware of impending GE

Written by Chan Kok Leong, The Edge

For the first time since the public inquiry into how Selangor assemblymen spent their allocations, an officer has admitted to knowing that the general election was around the corner.

Later, finance clerk Norafzati Jantera acknowledged having received calls from the Ijok assemblyman urging the Kuala Selangor Land Office to hasten the processing of his allocations.

"Together with other colleagues in the land office, we 'gotong-royong' to finish processing payments for the assemblyman," Norafzati said at the third day of the Selangor Select Committee on Competence, Accountability and Transparency (Selcat) hearing today.

Norafzati and another clerk, Nordiana Mokhtar, had processed 85 payments amounting to RM449,500 on the eve of the dissolution of Parliament and state assemblies on Feb 12, 2008.

But Norafzati denied that she had prior knowledge that former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi would announce the dissolution of Parliament the following day.

"The YB asked us to speed things up and we did overtime to complete the processing but he did not say that the state assembly would be dissolved on Feb 13, 2008," she replied to Selcat member Azmin Ali’s question on whether she knew of the dissolution.

But District Officer Mohd Misri Idris, who joined Kuala Selangor Land Office in April 2008, had earlier told Selcat that the land office "normally" processes 25-30 applications for allocations per day.

Mohd Misri also testified that his department and other land offices knew that general election was around the corner.

"From late 2007, the Election Commission had already begun distributing election manuals and conducting training for all land office personnel," said Mohd Misri.

"Although we did not know the exact date for the dissolution of Parliament, we knew it would be soon," he added.

Mohd Misri was responding to a question on whether he knew when the Selangor state assembly would be dissolved.

Azmin was attempting to establish whether land office personnel had prior knowledge that Parliament would be dissolved on Feb 13, 2008.

"It is too coincidental that many of these payments took place just one or two days before the prime minister announced the dissolution," said Azmin.

Selcat was also trying to find out if there was undue pressure inflicted upon the land office personnel to speed up payments before the state assembly was dissolved.

Data revealed after testimonies from four land offices – Petaling, Gombak, Klang and Kuala Selangor – indicates that most of the state’s allocation for the constituencies were paid out in the final days leading to the state assembly dissolution on Feb 13, 2008.

In most of the seats, the assemblymen applied for and were reimbursed or took payments in the week leading to the dissolution. Many of the constituencies had fully utilised their allocations too, forcing the new state government to allocate another RM375,000 for each constituency.

But despite repeated questioning, assistant district officer Izahar Rashidi said that he was neither instructed or knew why the bulk of payments were made on Feb 12, 2008.

"Maybe, the previous district officer was informed by the state government but I was not told to complete the payments by the date," he replied to Azmin.

"I just processed the payments as they were piling up on my desk."

During the course of questioning, he told the committee that former Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Khir Toyo had another office in Ijok.

"The office was started during the Ijok by-election in April 2007 and we have continued paying for the rental since then.

"The office is currently used by the assemblyman although the signage still says it’s the MB’s office," said Izahar.

Izahar also told Selcat that his office had failed to verify the small project claims in accordance to the State Circular as his technicians were busy with an infrastructure project worth RM10 million.

He said that his office placed a lot of trust in the assemblymen and did not verify the non-governmental organisations or persons donations would be given to.