Leong told the Dewan Rakyat that companies should be allowed to manage their own employee training programmes as they were better positioned to determine the necessary skills and training required for their workers.
HRD Corp, an agency under the human resources ministry, is responsible for driving Malaysia’s talent development through the collection of levies from employers which are used to fund training and development programmes.
“The objective of this levy is to provide training for employees, not to make investments. This has created opportunities for leakage and corruption,” he said.
“Therefore, it is crucial for the government to review this policy and allow employers to conduct their own training. The government should only provide incentives to employers to encourage this training,” Leong said.
In its report released last Thursday, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found that HRD Corp’s investment panel had invested levy collected from employers in several “high-risk” investments.
PAC found that the panel did not report its investment activities to HRD Corp’s board of directors, leading to a lack of oversight.
PAC chairman Mas Ermieyati Samsudin also revealed that no Bank Negara Malaysia representative had sat on HRD Corp’s investment panel since 2017, which is a violation of the Human Resources Development (HRD) Act 2001.
Separately, a report by the national audit department uncovered issues such as poor governance in HRD Corp’s investments of RM3.727 billion – which resulted in unrealised losses of RM49.38 million from 29 investment transactions.
Last Friday, the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) called for a halt to firms paying mandatory levies to HRD Corp.
MMA president Dr Azizan Abdul Aziz said the levies paid represented the hard-earned income of businesses which was entrusted to HRD Corp for talent development.
Earlier today, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission officers visited HRD Corp’s office and the human resources ministry to seize documents related to investigations which were launched after the two reports were released last Thursday.