District health offices spent money meant for hungry children

The Health Ministry will set up an internal investigation committee to investigate financial abuses in one of its programmes for hungry children in the country.

Money appropriated to feed the children had been used to buy nasi goreng, nasi lemak, kuih and teh tarik to be served at meetings by three district health offices.

The abuse highlighted in the 2013 Auditor-General’s report found that out of RM923,000 allocated to feed poor rural children, RM87,851 was misspent by the Jerantut, Gua Musang and Kota Kinabalu health offices.

“In order for the Rehabilitation Programme for Malnourished Children, the Health Ministry had received an allocation of RM66.1 million between 2011 and 2013, a One-Off NKRA provision for malnourished children.

“The allocation had been distributed by the Ministry to State Health Departments which will then channel the funds according to the number of cases in a particular district or area.

“An audit review of the financial records at the Health District Offices in Jerantut, Kota Kinabalu and Gua Musang in Kelantan found that the allocation to purchase food baskets for the children had instead been used to buy curtains, hampers for cooking programmes, replica models of food items, souvenirs and other items,” said the report.

The report added among the factors that lead to this wastage of funds was due to poor revenue and asset management, negligence as well as weak planning and monitoring of projects by the District Food Science Officer in charge.