Kit Siang shocked RM800m spent so far on flood victims!
“There should be strict audit of the RM800 million spent so far as Kelantan alone is entitled to get RM500 million to RM600 million as the worst flood stricken state.”
(Free Malaysia Today) – The Opposition has expressed surprise and shock that the Federal Government has already spent RM800 million so far on flood victims in the peninsula as against an announced allocation of RM500 million previously.
“There should be strict audit of the RM800 million spent so far as Kelantan alone is entitled to get RM500 million to RM600 million as the worst flood stricken state,” said DAP elder statesman Lim Kit Siang in a statement on the sidelines of a visit to Gua Musang, the worst-hit area in the country.
“I am shocked that Deputy Finance Minister Ahmad Maslan announced on Tuesday that the government had so far spent about RM800 million through the National Security Council to help victims in states affected by floods in the provision of food supply, logistics and cleaning houses of victims.”
No one in Kelantan would feel that the Federal Government had spent RM500 million to RM600 million in Kelantan in the past two weeks of the floods catastrophe to help flood victims, he added. “No money should be spared to help the flood victims, but not a sen should be wasted.”
Lim, who is also DAP Parliamentary Leader and Gelang Patah MP, warned that government expenditures to cope with the catastrophe must directly benefit the flood victims and “not the flood barons, entrepreneurs and cronies”.
He urged Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to pledge that every student affected by the floods will be provided free sets of school uniforms, text books, exercise books, and all other necessary school supplies, which will be evidence of such expenditures directly benefiting the flood victims.
“There should be no rigid requirement for students to wear school uniform at least for the first month of school for the flood-stricken areas, until every student has been supplied with two sets of free school uniforms,” he suggested.
He recalled that he sent an email to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak on a five-point action plan on the floods catastrophe which have caused 23 dead, evacuation of a quarter of million people, and a million people adversely affected by the floods, and losses running into billions of ringgit.
