KUALA LUMPUR – The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is casting its net wide in its investigations into the management and finances of the Human Resources Development Corporation (HRD Corp).
It is understood the PAC is investigating various allegations of abuse of power and procedural wrongdoings within the institution that sits on an estimated RM2 billion comprising employers’ contributions.
The PAC began its inquiry into HRD Corp today, quizzing two senior office-bearers over how the corporation has been running without a chairman or full board since April.
HRD Corp chief executive Datuk Shahul Dawood and Human Resources Ministry Deputy Secretary-General (Policy and International) Datuk Amran Ahmad fielded questions from a panel headed by PAC chairman Datuk Mas Ermieyati Samsudin.
Also present were senior officials of HRD Corp and representatives of the Finance Ministry.
“The PAC were particularly interested to know how the HRD Corp leadership is making decisions without proper board oversight,” said a highly placed source.
It is learnt that the PAC will be extending its sitting on HRD Corp for a further five to six sessions.
On October 21, Scoop reported that a governance framework report that is meant to prevent future mismanagement and misappropriation had been removed from the corporation’s system, kept from the current board.
An audit on the then-Human Resources Development Fund – before it was renamed HRD Corp – was ordered by then-human resources minister M. Kulasegaran in 2018, but the report, said Kulasegaran, is no longer accessible since his departure from the ministry in 2020.
The present leadership of HRD Corp has also been accused of misleading the board on its proposed Skills Passport initiative, where the Finance Ministry found discrepancies in a contract procurement valued at between RM53 million and RM159.47 million a year. – October 23, 2023