Former HRD Corp COO Ariff Farhan Doss told FMT his dismissal was triggered by accusations that he was behind reports lodged with the national audit department (NAD) and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) concerning purported irregular transactions and conduct involving the skills training company.
Last Thursday, both the NAD and the PAC issued reports implicating HRD Corp in multiple governance issues and the irregular use of funds.
Ariff said he was issued by his employer a show cause letter on April 4 accusing him of breaching confidentiality when lodging reports to both authorities.
HRD Corp claimed Ariff’s complaint resulted in all its senior officers being subjected to interviews based on “false allegations” which damaged the corporation’s and its employees’ reputations.
As a result, members of the corporation’s senior management team were required to take time off from work “merely to address (Ariff’s) unsubstantiated complaints”, giving rise to a “waste of the corporation’s resources”.
“The allegations you made included the supposed failure of the corporation to adhere to established processes and procedures in fund utilisation, and falsely reporting that the corporation incurred losses in its investments, despite you being fully aware that these allegations are baseless,” the letter read.
Ariff was also accused of having abused his authority and the trust and confidence placed upon him to safeguard the interests of HRD Corp and its employees.
He replied on April 17 to deny HRD Corp’s allegations but was summarily dismissed on May 15 after the corporation said he no longer had its trust and confidence for the proper discharge of duties.
“My last day at HRD Corp was on May 15, and one of the reasons was because I spoke to the PAC and the NAD. HRD Corp accused me of lodging reports with them, which is untrue,” said Ariff.
“They alleged I made baseless claims, but the auditor-general’s (A-G) report and PAC report hadn’t even been released. I was not issued a warning letter before I was dismissed, and there were also no domestic inquiries to look into the whole issue.”
Under the Industrial Relations Act 1967 (IRA) the director-general of industrial relations may refer a complaint of unlawful dismissal to the Industrial Court if the matter cannot be resolved via mediation.
HRD Corp, however, declined to attend the mediation session scheduled on July 3, claiming that, as a statutory body, it was not subjected to do so by virtue of Section 52 of the IRA.
Ariff, however, claims that contention has no basis.
“A check with the Companies Commission of Malaysia revealed that HRD Corp is not a statutory body but registered as a company limited by guarantee.
“The finance ministry’s list of statutory bodies under the human resources ministry shows only two entities: the Social Security Organisation and the Skills Development Fund Corporation,” he said.
In her report, A-G Wan Suraya Wan Radzi questioned a RM120 million deal involving HRD Corp.
The report also raised issues of poor governance, including with regard to investments of RM3.727 billion which had resulted in unrealised losses of RM49.38 million.
The A-G also flagged a suspicious disbursement of training grants, totalling RM51.69 million, to 3,726 individuals who attended training multiple times under the Gerak Insan Gemilang scheme.
The report also said 234 participants in the scheme were flagged as suspicious for having identical names and identification numbers.
Meanwhile, the PAC report also raised governance issues and noted that levies collected from employers for the training and upskilling of employees were “aggressively” used for high-risk investments.
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission has formed a task force and opened several investigation papers to look into the issues outlined in the A-G’s report.