Penang Insolvency Department Staffed By Bankrupt Minds.

A group of 34 individuals, who bought houses in a project which was later abandoned and were given the runaround by the Penang Insolvency Department, finally had their day in court. Their long road to justice took 26 years. Yesterday in the High Court, they won a bittersweet victory with a settlement in their favour.

RM1.24 million deposited with the Official Assignee by the developer of the abandoned project would now be returned to them. In 2002, the developer paid the RM1.24 million to the Penang Insolvency Department and the money was supposed to be distributed to the affected house buyers. However, instead of doing so, the house buyers were given the runaround and they decided to seek redress in the court.

The 34 house buyers, who were represented by Kanakavalli Nadarajan Pillay, had filed an originating summons seeking the release of their money from the department.

What do we do to such heartless and inefficient public servants? There is no conceivable reason for the damned department to have withheld the payment to these unfortunate people. If there had been justifiable cause it would have come out in court. In fact senior federal counsel Jamhirah Ali said "I admit there has been a long delay but I don’t know why the Penang Insolvency Department failed to pay the money."

I'm sure that the senior civil servants in charge of this department as well as the relevant exco member/minister must at least now have some knowledge about this case and of the totally inept and wretched people manning this godforsaken office. Will there be at least a pretence of an inquiry to see what went wrong and to ensure that it will not recur? Or are we to continue to be distressed and given the runaround and compelled to turn to the courts every time we have to deal with this intellectually and morally bankrupt department? And these goons want two months bonus!!