Pergau Water Intake at Kuala Yong Dam Hydroelectric dam on the Pergau River in Malaysia, near the Thai border. Building work began in 1991 with money from the UK foreign aid budget. Concurrently, the Malaysian government bought around £1 billion worth of arms from the UK. The suggested linkage of arms deals to aid became the subject of a UK government enquiry from March 1994. In November 1994 a High Court ruled as illegal British foreign secretary Douglas Hurd's allocation of £234 million towards the funding of the dam, on the grounds that it was not of economic or humanitarian benefit to the Malaysian people.