Deputy Prime Minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail today reassured that the new Pakatan Harapan government will retain the Permata child development programme which was introduced under the previous BN administration.

Wan Azizah, who also holds the portfolio of Women and Family Development minister, said the programme which was the brainchild of Rosmah Mansor - wife of former premier Najib Abdul Razak - must, however, be audited and reviewed before any further decisions are made.

"The Permata programme is one of the things which I had brought to the attention of the prime minister, that we need to have it audited.

"Because Permata is one of the good programmes (under BN) closely tied to children's development, so what is good we will continue," she said.

"But how are we going to do it must first be audited and reviewed," said Wan Azizah who earlier clocked in for her first day in office at Bangunan Perdana Putra, in Putrajaya.

The PKR president said this when asked for comments on Rosmah's remarks that she hoped the new Harapan government will not pull the plug on the Permata programme.

Quizzed on details of the audit, Wan Azizah said the process would entail looking into whether federal funds allocated for Permata, previously placed under the Prime Minister's Department, has been cost-effective.

She also noted that there was a possibility that the programme could be taken out of the PMO and placed under her ministry.

'Taskforce to deliver 100-day promises'

Meanwhile, Wan Azizah said she had during a meeting with Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad this morning, raised the need to set-up a special task force to deliver Harapan's 100-day promises for the people.

"Among our focus is to deliver the promise of having an Employees Providence Fund contributions for housewives," she said, adding that other areas of immediate concern include addressing the issue of malnutrition among urban poor children as previously highlighted by a Unicef study.