Water Dept graft scandal probe nears completion
KOTA KINABALU: The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) is expected to complete its investigation into the Sabah Water Department’s multi-million ringgit corruption scandal.
Its deputy commissioner of operations, Datuk Azam Baki, said investigations papers would be submitted to the AttorneyGeneral after going through nearly 12 tones of documents.
In a statement on Thursday, Azam said MACC officials spent close to a month to analyze some 8,000 payment vouchers that were made between 2008 and 2016 from tens of thousands of documents as part of their investigations.
The documents, he said, were seized from 30 locations around Sabah, including Kota Kinabalu, Tawau, Sandakan and Lahad Datu.
Twenty-eight people including the department’s director and two of his deputies were detained during the Ops Water operation, which began in early October.
Also apprehended were 23 divisional and district engineers and two other individuals who were allegedly involved in the case.
MACC had also recorded statements from 200 witnesses during the investigations.
Azam added that MACC had seized or frozen properties amounting to RM114.5 million comprising cash, bank accounts, unit trusts and other assets within and outside of the country.
Azam said investigations involving 137 MACC officers from its headquarters as well as from its various divisions and states.
It was reported that Water Department officials were alleged to have abused their powers by awarding contracts to 38 companies owned by their families or cronies, to siphon federal funds.
MACC investigators were to have implicated top department officials in connection with the siphoning of money from RM3.3 billion worth of federal allocations for state rural water projects since 2010.
Azam has been quoted as saying that certain individuals in the department may have been collecting as much as 27% to 30% in kickbacks from the contracts awarded.
MACC investigators were also looking into suspected money laundering in their bid to recover some RM30 million that had been reportedly stashed away in overseas accounts.