Muar MP Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman is engaging Ernst and Young to audit his RM872,720 “1 Keluarga 1 Laptop” and “1 Keluarga 1 Tablet” programmes.
The professional services firm will also prescribe him a set of fundraising best practices, which he intends to share with fellow parliamentarians.
In an online press conference today about his team’s fundraising efforts, he said this paid audit was aimed at improving how politicians like himself raise funds.
“We want to know how to reduce negligence, ensure there are no leakages, what improvements need to be made and what documents are needed because these can sometimes be overlooked in large operations.
“Ernst and Young will work with us to advise us on our 1 Keluarga 1 Laptop and 1 Keluarga 1 Tablet programmes. They will go through our documents and details.
“And after that, they will tell us what is the gold standard for fundraising which can be used by me and my other friends,” he said.
The opposition politician, who leads the Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda), said this was a step towards changing the culture of political funding.
“I want to start a new standard in Malaysia where transparency and integrity becomes the beating heart of politics.
“So people will know where their money goes (and) recipients will know how much they are getting. And we will report as much as possible, (be) as transparent as possible so there is greater accountability and transparency in fundraising,” he added.
He expected the audit and advisory process to take several months.
RM1.4m raised
During the press conference, Syed Saddiq reported that his team had raised RM1,438,401.71 for his constituency since Dec 2020.
This was through a series of programmes like his well-publicised “botak challenge”, online tuition lessons, clothes sales, “Muar Sejiwa” fund, foodbank fund as well as 1 Keluarga 1 Laptop and 1 Keluarga 1 Tablet.
This comprised monetary and “in-kind” donations from the public.
Along with a RM320,000 allocation from the government, he said his service centre had received a total of RM1,758.401.78 in the past seven months.
Opposition MPs receive far less allocations from the government compared to their government counterparts.
From the money they received, Syed Saddiq said they have spent a total of RM1,639.215.60 (93 percent) thus far.
“It is clear that in all our fundraising efforts, whether I taught online or sold kurta, clothes, food or other things, I did not take a single sen but I channelled it directly to the Muar service centre,” he stressed.
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