PKNS staff paid millions to ‘read newspapers’

PETALING JAYA: The Pakatan Rakyat-led Selangor government has been paying Selangor State Development Corporation (PKNS) staff millions to “just sit around reading newspapers”, a controversial blogger revealed today.

In revealing this on his web portal, Malaysia-Today, Raja Petra Kamarudin, claimed that PKNS is being used as a vehicle to reward the supporters of certain key politicians in Pakatan Selangor, in particular from PKR.

“These people are overpaid and they really have not much work to do, so most times they just sit around reading newspapers. Furthermore, their salaries are way above what one would consider as market price,” he said today.

Raja Petra revealed that PKNS general manager Othman Omar, the person who sent PKR deputy president Azmin Ali his ‘sacking letter’ from the agency’s board, was paid RM45,000 a month – “more than twice what he would get in the public sector”.

“Most interesting would be Othman’s ‘Girl Friday’, Faridah Rohani Rais, who earns RM7,000 a month plus a special allowance of RM1,000 per hour just for writing the GM’s speeches and for acting as his ‘special consultant’,” he observed.

“The irony to this whole thing is another consultant, Consultant Kriss Communications, actually does Faridah’s work and is also paid RM1,000 an hour to duplicate her work.

“Then yet another consultant, Rafei from CT Cua, was paid RM200,000 to handle PKNS’ re-branding exercise,” he claimed.

“Why is Faridah paid RM7,000 per month and RM1,000 per hour to do work that other people are paid huge sums of money to do?” he questioned.

Long list of abuses

He further revealed that a Lebanon consultant, Armeen Papazian, was paid RM1.5 million in consultancy fees for work not done while his colleague, Sahul Hamid Dawood, received a total contract sum of more than RM3 million over two years, although the latter did not complete his job and PKNS “had to redo everything”.

Local well-known personalities were also not spared from Raja Petra’s “list”.

He disclosed that PKNS had thrown a wedding dinner for astronaut Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor at a cost of RM520,000.

“PKNS also paid singer Zainal Abidin of ‘Hijau’ fame RM500,000 to help sell PKNS houses; that in the end ended up unsold,” he added.

“So that is more than RM1 million in expenses to finance frivolous activities that brings no benefit to the poor and homeless of Selangor,” he lamented.

Raja Petra claimed that “the list goes on” and that he possessed “pages and pages of such exorbitant expenses that can only be equated to a wastage of the taxpayers’ money”.

“Those documents that I have in my possession reveal that many others receive between RM20,000 to RM30,000 a month for doing very little other than for being the supporters of certain people,” he claimed.

“And you people (the public) complain that times are hard and that it is difficult to make ends meet in these hard and trying times.

“Well, that may be true for you. But that is not true for these PKNS people who are well paid to hardly do any work,” he added.

Raja Petra also threatened to reveal the exorbitant legal fees the Selangor state government was paying to its Pakatan lawyers.

“You will be astonished if you were to look at the invoices that run into millions with no other details other than just ‘work done’,” he said.

“This complaint was raised by the DAP lawyers; so this is not what I say but what the DAP lawyers say,” he pointed out.

Taxpayers brought for a ride

He stressed that PKNS is an agency funded by the taxpayers, and is “not the place to park political supporters and pay them big fat salaries, allowances, and consultancy fees for doing nothing”.

“That would be called abuse of power and corruption. And you dare tell us that Selangor has improved since the time Pakatan Rakyat took over the state?”

Last week, Raja Petra revealed that PKNS has allegedly spent RM40 million on football since 2008.

Raja Petra claimed that it was the amount spent by the state body to fund the PKNS Football Club (PKNS FC) since Pakatan Rakyat took over the state government.

He added that prior to 2008, the cost of running the football club was less than RM2.5 million per year.

His revelation comes after Selangor Menteri Besar Abdul Khalid Ibrahim informed the media that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) was currently investigating allegations that funds meant for the PKNS FC were abused.

PKNS is the state government’s cash cow but following complaints of leakages and abuse, Khalid has undertaken the task of ‘cleaning’ the corporation of unwanted elements.