Waytha dares Halimah to repeat claims outside Parliament

 

P Waytha Moorthy has denied claims by national unity minister Halimah Sadique that he overspent Mitra’s funds to the point that it ate into the 2020 and 2021 allocations.

PETALING JAYA: P Waytha Moorthy has challenged Halimah Sadique, his successor as national unity minister, to repeat outside of Parliament allegations that he mishandled the Malaysian Indian Transformation Unit’s (Mitra) funds.

“I challenge minister Halimah to repeat those allegations outside Parliament if she is convinced that what she uttered was the truth.

“She should not hide behind the curtain of parliamentary privileges and take a shot at me with false, malicious and wild accusations. I challenge her to do so immediately,” he said in a statement.

Waytha, who was national unity minister under the Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration, said that if Halimah does not do so, she should apologise for misleading Parliament and the Malaysian Indians.

Yesterday, Halimah said Mitra had not been receiving its full RM100 million annual allocation for the past two years because it had “debts” to repay.

She told the Dewan Rakyat that Mitra only had RM65 million for 2020, with RM35 million used to pay off debts from programmes implemented previously, when the agency was under the prime minister’s department.

“You should ask the previous minister (Waytha) why he spent Mitra’s funds to the point that it ate into the 2020 and 2021 allocations,” Halimah told opposition MPs in her winding-up speech on the 12th Malaysia Plan.

Waytha said that when Mitra was under his management, RM100 million per year was allocated to him. However, before spending the funds on socio-economic development projects for the community, he was briefed by the auditor-general’s office on a huge mishandling of funds.

He claimed this mishandling of funds was made by the previous management of the Socio-Economic Development of the Indian Community Unit (Sedic) and the abuse of funds was made by a former Indian minister and two deputy ministers under the Barisan Nasional (BN) government.

He said the funds allocated for socio-economic development under him had both short-term and long-term plans, benefiting especially Indian youths and single mothers.

They were for high-skilled and niche-skills job training, creation of high-income jobs and creation of modern digital economy platforms for the Gen Z, among others.

“Almost 200 programmes were selected and a total of RM95,743,557.20 was approved as at Oct 16, 2019,” he said.

However, to ensure transparency, accountability and responsibility towards the spending of those funds and to ensure there were no failed programmes, Waytha said a three-tier payment method was devised.

He said the final payment would only be made once a programme was completed.

A certain amount was parked, with a ceiling of RM500 million approved under the 11th Malaysia Plan, to be utilised the following year, without the need to reduce the RM100 million approved for 2020.

“Therefore, Halimah’s allegations are baseless. She is ignorant and wrong to claim that I had left Mitra in debt.

“How can development expenditure for the economic upliftment of society be termed as debt? It is an investment in the community.

“She is insulting the Indians by saying expenditure on Indians caused debts to Mitra.

“I did not overspend a single sen. My answers in Parliament are still available for her to access,” he added. - FMT