Why is the Minister of Transport so afraid of having the Auditor-General investigate the RM4 billion KLIA2 scandal?

Media Statement by Tony Pua, DAP National Publicity Secretary and Member of Parliament for Petaling Jaya Utara in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, 12 December 2014:

 

 

The Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has strongly recommended to the Government for the over-budget, over-schedule, problematic RM4 billion KLIA2 project to be audited by the Auditor-General (AG) in PAC Report tabled on 26 November 2014.

 

Instead of allowing the AG to access the scandal, the Minister of Transport, Dato’ Seri Liow Tiong Lai has chosen to callously ignore the PAC’s recommendation.  Instead, he announced the set up of a separate “independent audit committee” and strictly limited their scope “to conduct a detailed investigation of the sinking surfaces at the apron and runway with the aim of ensuring safety at the airport.”

 

While the sinking surfaces at the airport is certainly a matter of serious concern which has also been highlighted in the PAC report, it wasn’t the only issue which the PAC had found to have grave misgivings.

 

The PAC has found that the main cause of the problems in KLIA2 including the cost which ballooned from RM1.7 billion to RM4 billion and its repeated delay in completion was due to mismanagement and very questionable decision-making by the Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) management. 

 

These included the decisions to locate KLIA2 at KLIA West, a site which has been documented by engineers as costly and ill-suited for airport construction; and the choice of a satellite-type terminal instead of a finger pier terminal as proposed by the airport consultants.  These highly questionable decisions have resulted in the exceedingly high cost of the airport and the consequent delays in its completion.

 

It is clear that the “independent audit committee” will not be given any room to dig into the above faults and identify the culprits behind the scandal.

 

Is the Minister of Transport trying to cover up the gross mismanagement over the design, award and construction of KLIA2?  Is Dato’ Seri Liow remotely interested in punishing those being the decisions which has resulted in the profits of MAHB to drop by a staggering 98% in the latest financial quarter?

 

Or will the RM4 billion KLIA2 scandal go the way of the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone scandal which has become a crime without criminals under the Minstry of Transport?

 

Has the MCA Ministers of Transport become just the Ministers of Cover-Ups for multi-billion ringgit project scandals without any sense of responsibility and accountability?

 

If MAHB really has nothing to hide then there is no reason at all for Dato’ Seri Liow to completely disregard the recommendation for the AG to be instructed to conduct an audit of the KLIA2 scandal based on the PAC findings.

 

 

Tony Pua