PUTRAJAYA: A former Rural and Regional Development Ministry staff was remanded for six days to facilitate the Malaysian Anti Corruption’s (MACC) probe into the alleged mishandling of federal funds for the underprivileged.
The remand order against the 40-year-old woman, effective today until Oct 11, was issued by Magistrate Aida Khairuleen Azli.
The woman, who was clad in a black floral blouse and a floral scarf, arrived at the Putrajaya magistrate’s court here at 9.30am.
She was arrested at the MACC headquarters here at 8.15pm yesterday. It is understood that she was a secretary attached to the infrastructure division in the ministry.
The arrest was made following MACC’s swoop on 15 locations in Sabah and the freezing of bank accounts containing more than RM150 million by the commission.
MACC officers yesterday also detained two people in Sabah, including Parti Warisan Sabah vice-president Datuk Peter Anthony, 46, and the owner of a construction company, aged 52.
These are the first three arrests in the ongoing probe into the siphoning of more than RM100 million from the ministry’s funds, which were meant for use in projects to benefit the underprivileged in Sabah.
The New Straits Times had, on Wednesday, front-paged a report that the MACC was after senior officials of a ministry, who had been working in cahoots with several companies to siphon money off the projects.
The probe, triggered by Bank Negara Malaysia’s Suspicious Transaction Report alert system and public tip-offs, revealed that those in the corrupt network had allegedly pocketed no less than RM100 million.
The projects were valued at between RM500 million and RM1 billion.
They included food programmes for poor students and the construction of basic amenities, including water and electricity supply, and roads in rural areas.
It was reported that the suspects would falsify the documents to show the projects had been carried out when they were, in fact, not implemented.
Another method applied by these individuals was to make “cutbacks”.