SARAWAK FOCUS: The refusal of the state government to disclose details of its development projects funded by its billion ringgit development fund has prompted Kota Sentosa assemblyman Chong Chieng Jen to accuse it of hiding something.
Since 2006, the state government has, on average, allocated more than RM1 billion of its development fund yearly into an account called “Government contribution towards approved agencies” Trust Account.
The state government under former Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud had refused to disclose the details, while the State Legislative Assembly Speaker Asfia Nasser had stopped him from raising the issue in the assembly in the past.
In 2013, the state government even threatened to sue Chong when he requested for answers on how it utilised some RM11 billion from the fund and how much was put into savings.
The amount of RM11 billion was accumulated over eight state budgets.
When the government failed to explain how it spent the money, Chong alleged that the money had gone into a “black hole”.
DAP successfully exploited the issue in the state and parliamentary elections in 2011 and 2013 respectively to its advantage.
It won 12 state seats in 2011 and five parliamentary seats in 2013.
It is certain that this issue will be used against the state government, now helmed by Chief Minister Adenan Satem, in the coming state election.
Chong has already queried the rationale of the Adenan Administration of continuing the practice of the previous government by setting aside a sum of RM1.418 billion for the fund in the 2016 State Budget.
“The state government has been very secretive on the operation of this account and has evaded many questions asked by me since 2010 in respect of its operation,” Chong said last Tuesday.
It was not until 2013, after a reprimand by the Federal Auditor-General, that the Sarawak Government tabled in the Sarawak Assembly, the financial statements of this account for the years 2006 – 2010.
However, these were all one-page statements with no information on the persons or companies the billions were paid to.
Finally, after several rounds of persistent questioning, the government tabled the Financial Statement of the said Trust Account for the years 2011 till 2014 in the current state assembly.
The statements revealed that the billions in the said account were all used to repay the loans taken up by the Sarawak Government through five of its subsidiary companies.
Chong said that the Sarawak Government has been using billions of development funds to repay the debts of five of its subsidiary companies, namely Sarawak Capital Assets Sdn Bhd, SSG Capital Resources Sdn Bhd, SGOS Capital Holdings Sdn Bhd, Equisar Sdn Bhd and Sarawak Technology Holdings Sdn Bhd.
Though it was stated in the financial statements that the loans were “grants for financing various projects”, there is no mention whatsoever on the details of the said financed “projects”.
Chong likened this mode of circumventing the scrutiny and accountability to the Sarawak Assembly to the modus operandi of the 1MDB scandal, except that in the case of 1MDB, the federal government transferred valuable land to 1MDB for the latter to sell and repay the latter’s debt.
But in the state government’s case, it is a direct allocation of development funds for these subsidiary companies to repay their loans.
“Despite the government’s attempted cover-up on the usage of this astronomical fund, I will continue to pursue the matter and make the Sarawak Government answerable to the people.
“The only way the state government can stop me from asking these questions in the dewan is to prevent me from getting re-elected via their legal course,” Chong added.-The Ant Daily
Post a Comment