PETALING JAYA: Malaysian Advancement Party president P Waytha Moorthy says he doubts Malaysian Indian Transformation Unit (Mitra) special committee chairman R Ramanan’s claim that the unit has achieved all of its targets for the year.
In a statement, Waytha questioned the targets set by the special committee and the standards used to measure its success.
The former national unity minister also alleged that Mitra did not provide any information about the selection mechanism, programmes, targets, and outcomes of the RM100 million it disbursed for the year.
He said the Sungai Buloh MP had promised transparency in Mitra’s dealings and stated that a full account of the unit’s expenses would be displayed on its website, but he claimed there was “nothing to date”.
“Mitra should not gauge its success purely on its ability to disburse RM100 million,” said Waytha.
He added that when he was in charge of Mitra during his tenure as the national unity minister in the Pakatan Harapan-led government, he created a grant management system that would ensure a “five-tier check” on all awards to prevent abuse of funds.
Awards amounting to RM1 million and above had to be approved by the Prime Minister’s Department’s deputy secretary-general and its committee to ensure transparency, adding that only “beneficial programmes” would be approved.
However, Waytha said the system was “mysteriously dismantled”, claiming that Ramanan and his committee had refused to reintroduce the “foolproof management system”.
The former minister also claimed that Ramanan failed to specify what he meant by the “high-impact programmes” under Mitra that benefited the community.
On Sunday, Ramanan said Mitra’s special committee had met all its key objectives set out this year as the department had fully utilised its funds in a transparent, accountable and fruitful manner.
In a Bernama report, he added that cleaning up Mitra’s image and delivering “high-impact programmes” for the betterment of the community were the team’s main mission and focus
He also said Mitra had moved away from past accusations of mismanagement of funds following an official “low-risk” rating from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) for 2023.
Last year, Mitra was investigated by MACC over allegations of misappropriation of funds from 2019 to 2021. - FMT
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