8 agencies yet to return RM83.67m

KUALA LUMPUR: Eight federal agencies have yet to return the balance of their grants totalling RM83.67 million to the Finance Ministry.

The Auditor General’s Report 2018 Series 2, released yesterday, said the grants were for 67 development projects and programmes, which had been fully completed.

“The balance of the grants was not returned as grant distribution letters from the Finance Ministry did not specify the terms of use of the grants in detail.”

The eight agencies were the Malaysian Highway Authority (MHA), Construction Industry Development Board Malaysia, Forest Research Institute Malaysia, Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation, Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia, Fisheries Development Authority of Malaysia, Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute, and Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority.

MHA had the highest unreturned balance grant at RM68.73 million. It had 13 development projects, which were completed between 2013 and last year.

“MHA received the grant in the form of the highway development fund from the Works Ministry to fund expenditures for highway development.

“It was found that 26 MHA projects, totalling RM299.01 million, related to highway development have yet to be finalised.

“MHA said this is due to the refinement process, which is still pending for the projects,” the report revealed.

The Finance Ministry supplied management grants worth RM2.224 billion to 32 federal agencies last year, while development grants worth RM3.129 billion were distributed to 39 federal agencies.

The report disclosed that two federal agencies — the Malaysia Productivity Corporation and Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia — had wrongly used the grants for other purposes, such as payments for contract workers, claims payments as well as housing loans.

It also said four programmes by Majlis Amanah Rakyat and the National Sports Institute had exceeded the amount of grants given to them.