Investigation

Three schools named for roofing repairs show no payment in the register

The Kuala Pilah District School Repair Committee allocated 3.2 million ringgit across eleven schools in March. Three schools flagged for roofing work have no disbursement entry in the register as updated through June.

By Firdaus Kamal · 19 July 2026 · 3 min read

Case names, entities and officials in this report are composite and illustrative. References to public bodies describe their statutory role only.

The allocation

The Kuala Pilah District School Repair Committee's 2026 allocation schedule sets aside 3.2 million ringgit for repair works across eleven government primary schools in the district, tabled at the committee's March sitting.

The schedule names each school and a repair category — roofing, plumbing, electrical or structural — with a budgeted figure for each, drawn from a site assessment the committee commissioned in January 2026.

The largest single line, 640,000 ringgit, is budgeted for roofing works at two schools the assessment flagged as carrying water damage from the previous monsoon season.

The allocation schedule names the 2027 school term's start as the single completion deadline; the schedule's own milestone column has no interim date entered.

The allocation schedule also lists a contingency line of 180,000 ringgit, held separately from the eleven per-school figures and carried at the same value in each of the committee's two prior annual schedules, according to the committee's public archive.

What reached the schools

The committee's disbursement register, updated through June 2026, shows payments released against eight of the eleven schools named in the allocation schedule.

Three schools — all named in the original schedule for roofing work — show no disbursement entry in the register as of its most recent update.

A note attached to the register states that the three schools' works are 'pending contractor confirmation,' without naming which contractor or what confirmation remains outstanding.

The register does not state whether the roofing repairs for the three schools remain funded under the original allocation or have been moved to a later schedule.

The register's own works-status field is filled in for the eight schools with disbursement entries and left blank for the remaining three, offering no independent read on those three schools' repair status.

Three invoices, one contractor

Among the eight schools with recorded disbursements, three invoices — for plumbing work at three separate schools — were submitted by the same contractor, Serantau Baik Sdn Bhd, within a four-day span in May 2026.

Each of the three invoices itemises materials and labour separately, and each carries a distinct invoice number, but all three list the same site supervisor's name in the sign-off field.

The committee's procurement guide asks for a site inspection report to accompany any invoice above 20,000 ringgit. Two of the three invoices, both above that figure, do not have an inspection report attached in the file this desk reviewed.

Serantau Baik Sdn Bhd was awarded the plumbing work at all three schools through the committee's direct-appointment procedure, which allows the committee to appoint a contractor without a competitive tender for a repair contract under a value ceiling set in the guide; the register does not state whether the combined value of the three invoices was checked against that ceiling as a set rather than individually.

What the register omits

The disbursement register records a payment date and an amount for each entry, but not a completion date for the physical works themselves, so a released payment cannot be matched in the register to a finished repair.

No document in the file states whether the three schools lacking a disbursement entry have had any repair work started, funded from another source, or deferred entirely.

The committee has not published an updated allocation schedule since March, and the disbursement register does not cross-reference the two missing inspection reports flagged above.

A written question on the outstanding roofing works, submitted by a parent-teacher association at one of the three affected schools, was logged by the committee's secretariat on 2 July with no response on record by publication time.

The committee's secretariat, asked in writing about the missing inspection reports, said only that the matter had been 'noted for follow-up,' the same phrase used in its response to a similar query the previous quarter, according to the secretariat's own correspondence log.

Three invoices from one contractor inside a four-day window isn't unusual by itself. What's missing is the inspection paperwork the committee's own guide asks for above a certain value, and that's the piece that would normally settle the question.