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KUALA LUMPUR: Kuala Lumpur MPs from the opposition have urged the government to abolish Yayasan Wilayah Persekutuan (YWP) that was involved in the Kuala Lumpur City Council (DBKL) purchase of land.
This follows a report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the YWP management was exposed to conflicts of interest as the minister of federal territories and the mayor of Kuala Lumpur were the president of the foundation and the member of the board. of trustees, respectively.
Justifying the call for the abolition of YWP, Segambut MP Hannah Yeoh said that the foundation’s main role of looking after the welfare of the people could be carried out by Yayasan Kebajikan Negara (YKN), which reports to the Ministry. Development of Women, the Family and the Community.
Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng said DBKL could also establish a separate department directly under its purview to handle welfare-related matters, while Lembah Pantai MP Fahmi Fadzil said that YWP could become a legal body.
“If the ministry does not intend to shut down YWP, another option is to turn it into a statutory body that can be audited by the National Audit Department,” Fahmi said at a press conference today.
YWP is a company registered under the Companies Act of 1965 and is not supervised by any authority, including the National Audit Department.
The PAC revealed yesterday that 97 DBKL land sales transactions had been carried out without reference to any POE since 2011, adding that the process was too lax and exposed to abuse of power.
PAC Chairman Wong Kah Woh had proposed that the sale and disposal of the DBKL land be done in a transparent manner based on a full set of standard operating procedures.
Yeoh urged the federal territories ministry to immediately halt all DBKL land transactions involving YWP for now and study the recommendations made by the PAC.
“The PAC is bipartisan, since parliamentarians from both sides study all these issues and make recommendations. Since it is a bipartisan effort, there is no way that the minister of federal territories and the cabinet will dismiss this as a political document, ”he said.
He also said that this was a kind of vindication for Segambut residents who are fighting to preserve the status of Taman Rimba Kiara park, as the PAC report confirmed what they had been saying all this time.
Fahmi asked for a response from Federal Territories Minister Annuar Musa in parliament on the PAC report, adding that this was a good reason for the minister to meet with opposition MPs.
“This is a good reason for us to sit together. We were all elected by the voters of Kuala Lumpur, so we have the locus standi to give proposals and advice, ”he said.
