By Emmanuel Samarathisa
AMONG the more interesting names that had been appointed by the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government to government-linked corporations is that of Shahul Hameed Dawood as chief executive officer of the Human Resources Development Fund.
The businessman, who runs an events company, drew flak because he was linked to controversial preacher Zakir Naik.
Rushing to Shahul’s defence, Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M Saravanan provided a racially tinged explanation, saying that his appointment would benefit the Indians.
“Nothing like that. Anyone who knows him (Shahul) will tell you that he has always helped the Indian community. He may be a Muslim by faith but by race he is a Tamil.
“And he is the grand-nephew of MIC veteran Tan Sri SOK Ubaidulla. We all know how much Ubaidulla cared for our community and MIC. This is his lineage,” he said in an April 15 statement.
Saravanan also said that MIC appointments to GLCs should not be seen as the monopoly of just the Tamils.
“We are a party of all Indians. There are Christians in our party, and there are also Indian Muslims. Why can’t we appoint them too as MIC’s reps in GLCs?”
He then went to defend Shahul’s links with Zakir. “As a businessman, his company was involved in organising the talks. He was not involved with Zakir personally, nor part of his religious talks.
“He had also organised other events involving people from Tamil Nadu, even bringing in movie stars and singers for shows here. How come that is not being questioned?
“I am confident he can deliver as the HRDF CEO, and that the Indian community can benefit from him,” he said.
But lost in all the race-based discourse is the fact that HRDF serves not only the Indians but Malaysians and, more importantly, it is a looter’s piggybank.
Months after Pakatan Harapan (PH) came into power and M Kulasegaran became the human resources minister, a scandal blew up. Kulasegaran said high-ranking staff members of HRDF misappropriated about RM100 mil out of the RM300 mil in the fund.
He also highlighted several wrongdoings such as abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and arriving at decisions without reporting to the board of directors.
On top of that, there were also reports that HRDF purchased an RM154 mil property in Bangsar South, also conducted without the approval of the directors and investment panel.
The new HRDF management, under then chairman Datuk Noor Farida Mohd Ariffin and CEO Elanjelian Venugopal, lodged two police reports and the police, in turn, referred the cases to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
HRDF’s new management team also set up a governance oversight committee (GOC) consisting of industry practitioners to audit the fund and recommend a robust governance framework, which they did. And then an ad hoc unit was created to implement the GOC recommendations as well as assist in investigations by the various law enforcement agencies.
Top on the list of GOC recommendations was to stop the segregation of 30% of employers’ human resources development levy towards the Consolidated (Pool) Fund, which was set aside for special projects.
And Noor Farida’s team implemented this. But the rest of these measures are now in limbo after the PN government took power and installed Saravanan as the new human resources minister. He then proceeded to remove Noor Farida, Elanjelian and other political appointees.
Also lost in this discourse is the true purpose of the HRDF. According to the Human Resources Development Act 2001, the role is about the imposition and collection of human resources development levy to promote the training and development of employees, apprentices and trainees.
The establishment and administration of funds by the corporation are to promote and stimulate manpower training and to determine the terms and conditions under which any financial assistance is to be given.
But while the HRDF is a body that collects funds only to be reimbursed later, it still lacks the power to audit and monitor the growth of human capital, which is what the country needs.
Will we ever see the return of that RM100 mil and the perpetrators brought to book is anyone’s guess. Ditto the question on whether HRDF will be framed as a Malaysian agenda as opposed to an “Indian” one.
But, sadly, Saravanan has not come up to speed with these things. — April 23, 2020
