KUALA LUMPUR, May 17 — Over 100 private companies are on the radar of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commision (MACC) for suspicion of making false claims under the Penjana Kerjaya 2.0 hiring incentive programme.

An unnamed MACC source told Malay daily Utusan Malaysia that the companies from various sectors and industries, were suspected of taking advantage of the Penjana rehiring scheme during the Covid-19 economic rehabilitation phase to commit fraudulent activities by falsifying documents to make claims for funds.

According to the news report published today, individuals in the companies under watch were identified based on intelligence gathered during the MACC’s Ops Hire along with the Social Security Organisation (Socso).

The source claimed that the companies under watch have between 10 to 70 staff and claimed to have offered training and a salary to their employees in order to misappropriate government funds.

"They were working with training institutes or other firms to obtain data so that they could make the claims in order to make use of the government hiring schemes. But in actual fact there were no such recruitments,” the source was quoted as saying.

MACC deputy chief commissioner (Operations) Datuk Seri Ahmad Khusairi Yahaya confirmed the arrest of 47 company directors for falsifying claim amounts ranging from RM450,000 to RM2 million.

The company directors whose ages are between 30 and 70 are being investigated under Section 18 of the MACC Act 2009 and Section 471 of the Penal Code.