RM120mil taxpayer’s money approved by bn federal gov’t for cronies in mic
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 28 — A former confidant of Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu has alleged that MIC misappropriated a government allocation meant to help the hardcore poor in the Indian community.
The charge was made by P. Chitrakala Vasu, former CEO of MIED, the MIC’s education arm, at a dramatic “tell-all” press conference in Petaling Jaya today.
Chitrakala, who lodged two police reports in Subang Jaya today, turned up at the press conference with guns blazing, blaming Samy Vellu for a variety of ills faced by the MIC and the Indian community.
She told of how the party misused government funds to shore up support for party leaders, including Samy Vellu, in the runup to the MIC elections.
According to her, the party had asked the federal government for an allocation of RM120 million to be paid out over four years to help poor Indians, as voters from the community had stopped backing the Barisan Nasional government.
After the elections Chitrakala said Samy Vellu had instructed her to put up a paper and ask for government funds for hardcore projects to win over the Indians who had gone to the opposition.
“I prepared a paper outlining eight categories of hardcore poor needing urgent assistance,” Chitrakala said and “we asked for RM30 million a year over four years for the projects to be undertaken by the Yayasan Pemulihan Sosial or YPS”.
‘The Prime Minister (Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi) was very happy with the paper and agreed to approve the funds. He open the MIC AGM and announced his approval of the funds,” she said.
However the Finance ministry wanted the YPS management team strengthened before payment was made. They wanted new people on the board, meaning fewer people beholden to Samy Vellu.
By the time the first instalment was to be paid out to YPS, Datuk Seri Najib Razak had become Finance Minister and wanted further “strengthening” of YPS.
He also decided not to give RM30 million at one go.
Instead instalment payments of RM10 million each was to have been paid out while a report was to be prepared before the next tranche could be released.
The first instalment of RM10 million was disbursed in December 2008.
But Chitrakala claims that the money is intended for the pockets of MIC branch chairmen and supporters of the incumbent leadership team instead. MI
