According to a Public Accounts Committee report on the government agency, the anti-graft agency said no offence under the MACC Act had been committed.

“We opened an investigation paper and we found no offence had been committed under the MACC Act,” the agency’s officer, Fuad Sedet, was quoted as saying.

In July, MACC said its probe into HRD Corp, following issues outlined in the 2024 auditor-general’s report, focused on corruption, abuse of power, and the misappropriation of funds.

The revelation that MACC had cleared HRD Corp of any wrongdoing came less than a month after it was reported that its CEO, Shahul Hameed Shaik Dawood, who took a voluntary leave of absence in July, had returned to work.

Shahul had taken garden leave to facilitate MACC’s probe.

Human resources minister Steven Sim said then that “everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and in this case, no HRD Corp personnel were charged in court”.

Sim also said that the report the ministry had submitted to MACC was to look into specific infractions raised in the auditor-general’s report.

It did not mean that any particular individual was guilty, he said.

HRD Corp comes under the purview of the human resources ministry.