Set up special body to monitor ministries’ spending, says Puad

A former deputy minister has suggested that the government set up a special body to monitor ministries’ development expenditures to ensure that they do not overspend.

Former Batu Pahat MP Puad Zarkashi said the unit should ensure no repeat of overspending, following the Treasury’s revelation that the rural and regional development ministry had spent beyond its allocation.

He said the special body could also monitor ministries that fail to use up their allocated funds.

Ministries should not be underspending if there are urgent needs to be met, said Puad, who served as deputy education minister from 2009 to 2013.

He said during his time with the education ministry, he was shocked to discover that it returned “quite a large” amount of its allocation to the finance ministry.

“I used to visit schools in the interior of Sabah and Sarawak, and was often informed that there were insufficient funds to repair dilapidated schools. But later I discovered that there were unused funds.

“What’s actually happening there? Is it bureaucracy? Inaccurate information (about the needs of schools)? Little Napoleons in ministries? Laziness? This is an issue that the 2027 budget should tackle,” the former Umno leader said in a Facebook post.

The Treasury previously revealed that deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s ministry consistently exceeded its approved allocation for rural road projects in recent years, with RM1.8 billion spent in 2023 against an approved allocation of RM1.1 billion, RM2 billion in 2024 against RM1.3 billion, and RM2.3 billion in 2025 against RM1.6 billion.

This resulted in a cumulative RM2.1 billion difference between approved annual allocations and actual expenditure.

The finance ministry later said the matter had been “resolved”, although a DAP MP has filed a report urging the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate the issue.