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The decision to make public
the audit report on the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ)
project lies with the Cabinet, said Port Klang
Authority chairman Datuk Lee Hwa Beng.
He said this was because the issue had been
deliberated during the last two Cabinet
meetings.
“The Port Klang Authority (PKA) has no power to
release the report because it is being discussed
at the Cabinet level,” he told a press
conference after chairing a PKA board meeting
here on Thursday.
He was unable to say when the Cabinet would
decide whether to make the report public or not,
adding that he had not had a chance to meet
Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat after
Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting.
The Government had last year instructed PKA to
commission an audit on the PKFZ project after a
public outcry over massive cost-overruns.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was appointed to
task.
The ministry has frequently promised that the
report would be made public. Lee had written to
PwC on April 30 to seek its consent following
Ong’s instruction to release the report within
seven days.
However, PwC replied on May 4 that consent would
be given subject to certain terms and
conditions, requesting indemnity.
On the matter of issuing an indemnity letter to
the audit firm, Lee said on Thursday that PKA
had been informed by its legal advisers that it
could still initiate legal action against the
audit firm if the need arose.
“We were told that we could countersue PwC if
there was negligence on its part in the event a
third party sues them,” he said.
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission has
started investigations into the controversy, and
will intensify its probe once it has obtained a
copy of the PwC report which has detailed cost
overruns amounting to billions of ringgit and a
trail of improper and poor decisions during the
development of the project. |
