Auditor-general: Govt agencies, GLCs must return misused public funds
All federal and state agencies, statutory bodies and 1,875 government-linked companies (GLCs) flagged in the Auditor-General's Report for public fund leakages must return the misappropriated funds.
Auditor-General Wan Suraya Wan Radzi stressed that no public department or organisation will be exempt from action if such leakages are detected.
'Through the Auditor-General's Report Follow-up Committee, we have identified several instances of...
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Daily Express
2 days ago
- Daily Express
Reform GLCs for Sabah's future, says UPKO's treasurer
Published on: Tuesday, June 10, 2025 Published on: Tue, Jun 10, 2025 Text Size: KOTA KINABALU: Sabah's government-linked companies (GLCs) must undergo bold and comprehensive reforms to serve the people and the state's long-term interests, says UPKO Treasurer-General Dennison R. Indang. He stressed that GLCs should drive economic growth, create jobs, empower local entrepreneurs, and contribute to state revenue. Advertisement However, he said, many GLCs have failed in their purpose due to political interference and poor governance, becoming financial burdens instead. Dennison called for a merit-based, professional approach in board appointments and transparent investment evaluations. Underperforming GLCs, he said, should be restructured or dissolved. He welcomed the formation of the Sabah GLC Monitoring Committee, viewing it as a vital step toward improving integrity, transparency, and accountability. Reform, he added, is not optional but essential for Sabah's economic strength and public trust. * Follow us on our official WhatsApp channel and Telegram for breaking news alerts and key updates! * Do you have access to the Daily Express e-paper and online exclusive news? Check out subscription plans available. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express's Telegram channel. Daily Express Malaysia
Malaysiakini
2 days ago
- Malaysiakini
Pay cuts for all GLCs too, not only Petronas
YOURSAY | 'Have you talked to PMX about the bloated civil service?' Harapan Youth demands pay slash for Petronas top brass Anonymous_3f4b: Pakatan Harapan Youth should direct their calls to the politicians in power first to reduce their obscene perks, allowances, and gratuities, besides eliminating pensions, which cause a dent in the national coffers. After all, these politicians say their duty is to serve the public, not serve themselves. Next, Harapan Youth must target all GLCs (government-linked companies) and state subsidiaries and demand that highly inflated salaries, allowances, and perks be reviewed, not only Petronas. Petronas knows that the oil and gas industry is going south and they are overstaffed. The same goes for the GLCs and state subsidiaries, which treat public taxpayers' money as their piggy bank without accountability and with no positive tangible results shown other than losing money and then getting bailed out again with public money. BlueCougar1744: Has Harapan Youth conducted the analysis on Petronas to retrench 10 percent of its workforce? It is a business decision. Our challenge to Harapan Youth is for you to tell Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim that we indeed have a bloated civil service. Have you done that? Being affiliated with any political party, it is your duty and role to ensure checks and balances. Have you demanded that all MPs and assemblypersons be allowed only EPF (Employees Provident Fund) schemes and not pensions? With the bloated civil service and the never-ending pension saga, what are your resolutions to move forward? The top brass in Petronas and all GLCs require a haircut. Do not just target Petronas because the company decided to remove 10 percent of its workforce. Harapan Youth is just trying to shift the blame. It does not work this way, and do not think the rakyat are equally complacent like you. Meerkat: Good points have been raised in this article. Why does Petronas need sponsorship anyway? It has no competition. It's just another way of giving perks to the top brass, who benefit from the reflected effects. A real pity was that Petronas was used as a piggy bank to bail out underperforming assets at the height of its prosperity. If the funds were used judiciously, the country would be basking in prosperity now. Instead, it's lagging way behind the little red dot, which has barely any natural resources. Steven Ong: GLCs are a good example that CEO pay should be according to the company's performance. A good PM would demand that the salaries of CEOs of GLCs losing money be cut in half and further reduced if there is no improvement, and replaced after the third year. The curse on Malaysia is that the government and PM are unethical and unwise to allow the CEOs of GLCs, which incur losses, to be bailed out year after year, to continue receiving unacceptable salaries. If immorality and unethical acts continue to go on, more curses and unfortunate disasters may happen in Malaysia. Chiaberliao88: This should be the humane approach when times are bad. The top executives who have been enjoying high pay, perks, and allowances should volunteer for pay cuts. Retrenchment of full-time, contract, or other workers should be the last resort. The government should go for this approach instead of laying off or retrenching contract workers. Contract workers have families to support, too. Falcon: In Malaysia, GLCs are companies where the government has a direct controlling stake. These companies play a significant role in the Malaysian economy, often operating in key sectors like banking, telecommunications, as well as oil and gas. If there are administrative or financial issues, the call to slash the perks and wages of the top management team is both right and justified before addressing layoffs or retrenchments! Undecided: Following Petronas' announcement of a 10 percent workforce reduction, Harapan Youth has called for the national oil company's leadership to share the burden. This is a good call by Harapan Youth. If the CEO of Petronas had good leadership qualities, this call would not have been necessary. A Better Msia: Harapan is out of touch. This should be asked of all GLICs and GLCs too, as their performance is weak with a lack of dividend growth for shareholders of Perbadanan Nasional Berhad - established on March 17, 1978, as part of Malaysia's New Economic Policy - and EPF. In addition, why not ask for a pension review of politicians, who drain the country's coffers merely for filling up a seat in Parliament and being in 'cari makan' mode? What a cost all these are to the rakyat? FairMinded: This should absolutely be carried out, and every employee from the top to bottom should have the word 'frugal' imprinted on their forehead. Their posh offices with lavish decorations, imported flowers, and fruits, among others, should be minimised. All perks should be downsized, and no overexpenditure on the budget. The good days of mimicking the oil-rich Arabs are over. Electric vehicles powered by green energy generated from solar and hydro, wind and hydrogen, are displacing oil and gas. Wake up, guys, and turun padang. The above is a selection of comments posted by Malaysiakini subscribers. Only paying subscribers can post comments. In the past year, Malaysiakinians have posted over 100,000 comments. Join the Malaysiakini community and help set the news agenda. Subscribe now. These comments are compiled to reflect the views of Malaysiakini subscribers on matters of public interest. Malaysiakini does not intend to represent these views as fact.
Daily Express
2 days ago
- Daily Express
Poor governance of GLCs to blame: Managed by some people of questionable integrity and knowledge
Published on: Tuesday, June 10, 2025 Published on: Tue, Jun 10, 2025 By: David Thien Text Size: Datuk John Lo (right) shared his opinions in a 'Sabah Voices to Action' podcast with former Sabah Law Society President Datuk Roger Chin (left) with Kopi Tiam Council hosts Adi and Haffisz organised by NGO Sabar recently on 'Economic Imperative on Stringent Governance for Sabah's GLCs'. Kota Kinabalu: Many of the 250 GLCs continue to lose millions of ringgit yearly. In Kota Kinabalu alone, most of the failed big projects are GLC joint ventures with non-Sabahan companies. 'What it tells us is that all these GLCs have very, very poor governance and this is the whole issue in Sabah. They are managed by some chairmen and board of directors who are of questionable integrity or knowledge. So things just roll along without good performance.' Advertisement 'If all or even 75 per cent of GLCs are doing well, the State government should have been receiving billions of ringgit in term of returns every year because the assets controlled by the GLCs are in the hundreds of billions of ringgit,' said Datuk John Lo, retired banker and advisor to the State Government in his role in the Sabah Economic Advisory Council (SEAC) as well as the Institute for Development Studies (IDS). 'Even if you take three or four per cent returns, we should be getting at least three, four or five, or six billion.' He shared his opinions in a 'Sabah Voices to Action' podcast with former Sabah Law Society President Datuk Roger Chin with Kopi Tiam Council hosts Adi and Haffisz organised by NGO Sabar recently on 'Economic Imperative on Stringent Governance for Sabah's GLCs'. Lo said these GLCs have failed to deliver decent returns from their assets. 5 per cent is acceptable and 10 per cent is considered good. If only the GLCs can generate 5 per cent or better from their assets, the Sabah Government would have several more billions of dividends each year! He said 5 per cent return on assets shouldn't be an issue as the cost of capital assets like land is practically free. Private sector can generate much better than 5 per cent even though they have to pay for land at market prices and to service interest for loans. Compare this to the RM143m the Sabah Government received from the few performing GLCs, of which RM50m was from SMJ Energy. Lo said Johor's KPJ HealthCare Bhd with 43.38 per cent owned by Johor Corp and listed on Bursa Malaysia with a total share value RM1.96 billion, is an example for Sabah's GLCs to emulate. 'KPJ HealthCare Bhd can deliver more dividend than all Sabah's GLCs Profit with more than RM350 million!' Sabah GLCs are also very fond of signing JVs with non-Sabahan companies for whatever reason. 'We need to cultivate homegrown businessmen rather than making or adding money to some non-Sabahan entities instead of within Sabah,' Lo said. 'My point is this, if the GLCs are successful, we could have listed on Bursa Malaysia – we don't need to raise so much government funds. 'Number two, we don't need to depend on the Government budget much. We can raise a lot of money by the billions by going to the market. Datuk Roger Chin said the traditional type of JV is literally over a piece of land. What happens is that the GLC ends up with 10 shoplots as an example. 'If the GLC had developed the prime piece of land, say in Kota Kinabalu, by itself, it would have gotten a lot more money and assets. 'I understand it takes a lot of money to develop the project. The GLC may not have the funds, but funds could have been raised by other ways. 'I have always found it amazing how they can just settle for 10 shoplots. Looking at all the JVs signed, you will realize that is actually like that.' Lo adding to Roger, said: 'If you have a piece of real estate that is very valuable, why does that GLC need to enter into a JV with somebody? They could have easily monetised this. 'You can actually raise funds because you already got a very valuable asset. Why do we need another company in the real estate business to come in? We have a lot of Sabahan developers who can do it. Now why do we need to enter into a JV with these people from outside?' Roger: 'For me, GLCs have a purpose. They are for industries or sectors that no one wanted to go into. Like a milk factory or a cement plant. 'They should only be in sectors where the private sector is not better than them. So they have to grow to be better than the private sector in these industries.' According to Lo, in Sabah two things have been happening for years. 'GLCs are killing the private sector in many areas. 'Our private sector have already been more or less wiped out. Our private sector has no chance to really develop. Worse is that with change of governments, one of the first victims will be the private sector players. 'Oh, you supported the last government so I kill you. Our political leaders they must stop this. 'We cannot have economic growth on a sustainable basis if you keep killing your own Sabahan entrepreneurs. More so, you kill Sabahan entrepreneurs and bring in outsiders. This is very, very serious. The mindset must change. 'Very simply put, if the GLCs belong to the government, then there is clearly a conflict of interest going on. 'The conflict is that I will support the ones that I own. I will give the ones that I own more of a leg up than it should, and therefore making it unfair for the private sector. That's how it distorts the market,' said Roger. 'It is bad because policies will be tailored to favour the GLCs rather than the whole private industry. That's how it distorts the market and the private sector suffers because of that,' Chin explained. He called for a Procurement Act that will be a game changer to equalise the playing field distorted by government's preference or overzealous enforcement of Bumiputra policies. 'Of course, all GLCs can be turned around! Nothing is impossible. All that is needed is political will and political courage. Hajiji (Chief Minister) has started the ball rolling. There are capable Sabahan officers and professionals who can turn around the GLCs!' 'For the first time in Sabah with Hajiji as CM and Masidi as Finance Minister, we have the political courage. The abuses, losses and misgovernance of GLCs have been swept under the carpet for too long. Hajiji has appointed Masidi to be in charge of all GLCs.' 'Sabah Voices to Action - Shaping Sabah's Future Together' is a citizen-driven, non-partisan initiative running from March to June 2025, dedicated to amplifying Sabahans' voices, fostering meaningful discussions, and shaping policies on education, healthcare, public infrastructure, and good governance. * Follow us on our official WhatsApp channel and Telegram for breaking news alerts and key updates! * Do you have access to the Daily Express e-paper and online exclusive news? Check out subscription plans available. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express's Telegram channel. Daily Express Malaysia
