KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 4 — Malaysia Airport Holding Berhad’s (MAHB) insistence on consulting with the Transport Ministry over an audit of the troubled KLIA2 airport demanded by a parliamentary watchdog is unnecessarily delaying the “urgent” checks, a federal lawmaker said today.
Suggesting that the consultation was an attempt to punt the issue between the two entities until the controversy fades from public attention, Public Accounts Committee (PAC) member Tony Pua pointed out that the ministry has also been “deafeningly” and “unacceptably” silent on the issue.
“Are both MAHB and the Ministry of Transport both colluding and playing the quiet ‘tai-ji’ game of passing the buck around the table in the hope that the issue will just magically disappear from the radar of the scrutinising public?” Pua said in a statement today.
The Petaling Jaya Utara MP also chided the MAHB’s insistence that it needed the ministry and shareholders’ nod before it can agree to scrutiny by the Auditor-General.
Even then, Pua highlighted that the airport operator was demanding to know what areas it would be audited over.
The DAP lawmaker said the response by operator of KLIA2 appeared to disregard the effort the PAC has put into scrutinising alleged problems with the airport, prior to asking the A-G to audit the low-cost carrier terminal.
“The PAC had painstakingly interviewed various parties including the officials from the Ministry of Transport, the airport operator, AirAsia Bhd – a key stakeholder and KLIA Consultancy Services, as well as reviewed various documents presented before forming the damning conclusions.
“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 MAHB management,” he added.
This made it unambiguous what areas of MAHB and KLIA2 would come under scrutiny, Pua explained.
He then pressed Khazanah Nasional Berhad, MAHB’s main stakeholder, to direct the firm to comply with the PAC’s demand for a federal audit in order to demonstrate there was no abuse of taxpayers’ funds in the construction of KLIA2.
The PAC last month urged the A-G to audit MAHB over the construction of KLIA2 after saying the airport operator failed to consider its “customers’” needs when building the new low-cost carrier terminal.
Auditor-General Tan Sri Ambrin Buang subsequently said he will request government approval to perform the audit as MAHB was a publicly-listed firm that his agency does not audit as part of the checks on government entities.
