Semak semula fakta, SUA PM beritahu rakan sejawat kepada Zahid

Perdana Menteri Anwar Ibrahim's chief aide, Tunku Nashrul Abaidah, has reprimanded Deputy Finance Minister Zahid Hamidi over a dispute concerning the allocation of funds for the Department of Rural and Regional Development (KKDW). Nashrul urged Fadzmel Fadzil to revisit the facts after Fadzmel questioned a statement from the Finance Department regarding funding for the ministry.

Nashrul is confident that the statement released by the Finance Department was not made hastily. He lauded the Deputy Comptroller-General for being a diligent and meticulous senior civil servant. The dispute arose after Zahid, who is also the Minister of Rural and Regional Development, claimed that payments to contractors for an rural development project have been delayed, leading to a backlog due to cash flow issues.

He stated that several contractors under his ministry are still awaiting payment even though they have completed work and reached project milestones as stipulated. In response, Deputy Comptroller-General Johan Mahmood Merican attributed the delays to overspending of nearly exhausted funds allocated for road projects this year. He said that the ministry consistently overspent more than the annual approved allocation for road projects since 2023.

However, Fadzmel argued that it is impossible for the ministry to overspend beyond the approved annual budget given the applications for additional funding submitted to the Comptroller-General and payments processed through the Putrajaya financial management system.