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ASM: We have returned about RM32 mil back to Mestecc

ASM: We have returned about RM32 mil back to Mestecc

PUCHONG: The Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM) has returned RM32,040, 944.43 of monies belonging to the government this month, said its chief executive officer Hazami Habib.

“On July 4, we received instruction from the 136th ASM Council meeting to return the funds to the government.

“As instructed, ASM has returned the funds back to the Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Ministry (Mestecc) on July 4,” she said, in a statement today.

Yesterday, the Auditor-General’s Report 2018 Series 1 indicated that RM31.66 million in unused R&D funds being held by ASM under the previous government has not been returned to the authorities.

The finding was discovered when an audit was conducted between November 2017 and April 2018, which found the fund under the 10th Malaysia Plan (2011-2015) was not utilised and was not returned.

On the overall, the second audit report found the research and development programme fund under the then-Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry (Mosti) under the previous administration has not achieved the optimum efficiency level as the targets set were not fully met.

Explaining the matter, Hazami said that ASM was appointed by MOSTI as the Project Monitoring Agency (PMA) for the ministry’s Research, Development and Commercialisation (R,D,C) projects.

As PMA, she added, ASM was tasked to provide funding for R&D projects approved and supervised by MOSTI.

‘ASM was tasked to provide funds for pre-commercialisation projects under the 9th Malaysia Plan (RMK9) and the 10th Malaysia Plan (RMK10).

“From there, we received funding worth RM174,977,297.20 in our capacity as PMA from Dec 29, 2011 to Dec 28, 2018,” said Hazami.

She added that ASM has sent a full report on its R,D &C spending to Mestecc on Oct 3, 2018; adding a note that there were still several projects under RMK10 given time extension till end of 2018 to be completed.

“On April 10 this year, ASM received a letter dated April 4 instructing us to return whatever balance from the funds provided back to Mestecc.

“Therefore, we sent a letter dated April 23 saying that we will return the funds by end of June after liquidating our fixed deposit certificates,” she said.

By G Vinod