Mahfuz wants probe into ministry project for Hasan Ali

PAS today demanded a full audit into the establishment of an RM30 million strategy unit by the Youth and Sports Ministry, which is said to be for financing 2,000 programmes for sacked PAS leader Hasan Ali.

In making the call, the Islamist party's vice-president Mahfuz Omar said the sum for the Strategy Unit, placed under the Youth Development division, has been collected from other units in the ministry and it is "like an Umno branch" within the ministry to finance political programmes.

"I am made to understand that this unit will help fund Hasan's activities to pull the youth to eventually support Umno and BN.

"It is like having Hasan's Jati (the organisation set up by Hasan) inside the ministry," he said.

"Through our research, we know that 60 to 70 percent of the new voters, who are mostly youth, do not support Umno and BN.

"This unit is tasked with the mission of turning over the youth to support the ruling government."

The PAS vice-president also claimed that the whole allocation, or at least a portion of the RM30 million, is allocated for Hasan's programmes nationwide.

As a result of this, Mahfuz said, a full audit has to be conducted on the ministry to find out why such a unit, which is not listed in the ministry directory, is tasked with doing this for Umno, with the use of money from taxpayers.