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PETALING JAYA: DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang says that the 85.5 million ringgit allocated to the Department of Special Affairs (JASA) is almost as much as the total amount given to the department in four previous budgets.
He noted that when JASA was under the supervision of Umno leader Puad Zarkashi as its CEO from 2015 to 2018, the department received a total of RM97.4 million in annual budgets.
Lim quoted an aide to former communications and multimedia minister Gobind Singh Deo as saying that one of his agencies, the information department, had enough staff, experience and equipment to distribute the government’s performance and policies on the ground.
“Could then Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz and Communications and Multimedia Minister Saifuddin Abdullah explain why it is necessary to revive JASA?
“Saifuddin has not contradicted a report from five days ago that quoted him as saying that he did not know that JASA was being revived with a huge allocation of RM85.5 million.
“If Saifuddin is not the person who would ultimately be in charge of JASA, the question is who will,” Lim asked in a statement today.
Iskandar Puteri’s deputy reiterated that reviving JASA was a misuse of government funds at this time of pandemic when the money could be used to support leaders and other measures to combat Covid-19.
According to the website of the Ministry of Finance, the purpose of JASA was to develop the community at the grassroots level through effective communication between the government and the people.
A total of RM4 million was allocated under the strategic communications funding and another RM81.5 million in the annual budget.
Several Umno leaders have urged Putrajaya to justify the 85.5 million ringgit allocated to JASA in the budget, saying that they would disagree if the unit is used simply for propaganda purposes.
Umno’s chief information officer, Shahril Sufian Hamdan, said it would be justifiable if the department plays an effective role as an information unit in rural areas, but argued that the allocation of more than RM80 million was too large.
JASA was closed in May 2018 after the Pakatan Harapan government launched an austerity campaign following its victory in the last general election.
