Penang BN Youth vice-chairman Rafizal Abd Rahim said ever since state executive councillor Chow Kon Yeow promised an investigation, there has been no update since.
Rafizal also expressed disappointment that not even one of the 36 DAP MPs had raised the fake awards issue in the ongoing Parliament session.
“Has the Penang government or the local government bodies formed a special investigation task force to probe this matter in detail?
“We feel an urgent audit must take place, too,” Rafizal said in a joint-press conference with other state BN Youth leaders here today.
MBPP and MPSP received awards from the Europe Business Assembly (EBA) in 2013 and 2014. EBA was later revealed to be allegedly running a money-for-awards outfit, as claimed by a UK daily.
Later, the councils’ admitted paying nearly RM40,000 as an entry fee to the awards programme.
They claimed they were not aware of the awards being fake and had written to EBA for an explanation over the issue.
Meanwhile, Rafizal said Penang BN Youth will present a faux Oscar “statuette” to the Penang government tomorrow.
He said the life-sized “Oscar” award was to “recognise” the Penang government over the fake awards presented to the two local government authorities under the state.
Rafizal also said it was not one sided on the issue, as Penang BN Youth was the first to call for a commission of inquiry into other recipients of the awards too, that is federal government-linked companies and public universities involved.
It was previously reported that past winners of EBA’s awards include three Malaysian public universities, namely USIM, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia (UTeM) and Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP).
USIM, UTeM and UniMAP received the “Best Regional University” award from EBA in 2013, according to a report by Utusan Malaysia on Dec 25 that year.
Their vice-chancellors reportedly won “Best Manager of The Year” in the same year as well.
One of the vice-chancellors was reported to have won “Best Scientist” separately from EBA’s “Oxford Summit of Leaders Science & Education”.
Another vice-chancellor was reported to have won “The Name in Science” award as well.
“What is surprising is, we were the first to ask for this. Isn’t this something the DAP MPs are good at doing?
“Whenever there is issues that does not augur well with BN, DAP will come forth and protest and call for investigations.
“But why don’t we see any DAP MPs uttering a word in Parliament about this fake awards issue? All 36 DAP MPs in the Dewan are silent about this,” Rafizal said.
According to The Times, a UK daily, EBA advertises itself as an Oxford institution to sell “made-up prizes” such as “The International Socrates Award” and “The Queen Victoria Commemorative Award” for prices reaching £9,300 (RM52,000).
The report claimed the EBA outfit was run by Ukrainian businessmen, targeting areas where people had the financial power to buy such accolades.
Public varsities, companies, GLC execs also recipients of EBA awards