COMMENT | MACC should open Mitra's can of worms

COMMENT | PSM central committee member Sharan Raj’s description may not have hit the bull’s eye but the arrow landed in one of the inner circles.

A month ago, he described the Malaysian Indian Transformation Unit (Mitra), a government entity dedicated to helping the Indian community as “an event funding organisation for politically-linked people.”

Tuesday’s arrest of 16 directors of companies that had received grants from Mitra by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) should not have come as a surprise. More arrests are expected to follow.

For long, there had been complaints from genuine training companies that “grants” were given to those who had neither the knowledge nor the expertise. On the contrary, they were given to cronies of politicians who set up “instant monies” to receive funds. The training was then leased to trainers.

Claims of misuse of funds by those connected with the hierarchy of a political party have surfaced regularly over the years. Despite repeated calls for an investigation, nothing moved because of what was rumoured to be the hot seat in Putrajaya.

But all that changed on Oct 5. National Unity Minister Halimah Sadique dropped a bombshell in Parliament - Mitra has not been receiving its full RM100 million annual allocation for the past two years as it has “debts” to pay...