What is the REAL Cost?

ARCHIVES 2011

By MT Webmaster On Apr 8, 2011

Masterwordsmith

The Malaysian Insider Here reported:

Upkeep for the official residences of the prime minister, deputy prime minister and ministers in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) cost RM3.4 million last year, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz has said.

The government spent RM1.76 million running Seri Perdana, the prime minister’s sprawling residence in Putrajaya, and RM1.59 million to maintain the deputy prime minister’s Sri Satria residence.

Residences of the five ministers in the PMO cost RM60,000 to maintain during the same period.

“As a symbol of the institution of prime minister and progressive, modern government, it is fitting that the Seri Perdana complex be kept in tip-top condition to preserve the country’s honour and image,” Nazri said in his reply to Taiping MP Nga Kor Ming in the Dewan Rakyattoday.

The minister in the Prime Minister’s Department also revealed the government spent RM4.4 million in 2010 to renovate Seri Perdana to make it fit for public visits.

Was it really RM 4.4 million spent on renovation in 2010?

In November last year, Harakah Daily reported HERE that:

Pokok Sena member of parliament Mahfuz Omar (pic) today took the government to task for allocating RM65 million for renovation of the Seri Perdana in Putrajaya.

“Why such high allocation is given to things which are not supposed to? In every budget, there is an allocation to renovate Prime Minister’s residence.

“Every time a new Prime Minister takes over, a renovation takes place. What is actually broken? We would like to know the sort of renovation which requires such a big sum. Or is it that plates have been broken everytime they walked in?” he said in Dewan Rakyat.

Mahfuz reminded the government that the budget was for the people’s welfare, and not for personal interest.

“Imagine RM65 million for the duration of two years. Next year, the cost of renovation is RM19.5 million. It means that a balance of RM45.5 million for 2012.

“That money can be used to help the needy,” he stressed.

Seri Perdana, the sprawling complex completed 11 years ago at a cost of RM201 million at a time when the country faced its worst financial and political crisis, had undergone several renovations, including during the premiership of Abdullah Badawi.

Mariam Mokhtar questioned the logic of spending so much money on the renovation in her article on Intensive Care Vs Seri Perdana.

In November last year, MP Liew wrote an excellent article HERE about Seri Perdana’s cost which EVERY MALAYSIAN MUST READ!!!

But it seems that common sense does not apply to the construction of Seri Perdana, the Prime Minister’s official residence in Putrajaya.

There have been at least five versions of the construction cost. The earliest figure given by the government was in July 1998 when it was claimed that the “private quarters” of the home cost RM17 million.

It has since been revised upwards many times until we were told in 2003 that the entire structure cost RM201 million. Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Dato’ Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz added a sixth version yesterday which makes the whole affair extremely problematic.

Work on Seri Perdana began in 1995 and was completed in mid-1999. The house was said to be haunted and the then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad only moved in nearly a year after it was completed.

READ MORE HERE