Auditor-general Ambrin Buang said the delay of the auditor-general’s report 2011 is “normal” and denied there was anything to hide.

He said it was normal seeing that last year’s report was also tabled two weeks after the budget presentation.

NONE "We have nothing to hide. Last year, the Auditor-General's Report 2010 was tabled two weeks after Budget 2012," Bernama reported him saying at the opening of Malaysia Audit Day and Public Sector Auditors Conference 2012 by Menteri Besar Adnan Yaakob. 

He said he was asked to delay the report to allow more time for the budget to be debated in Parliament.

"Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohamed Nazri Aziz had asked for more time to allow longer debate, to prevent the audit report from stealing the limelight from the budget,” he said.

However, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim today noted that the prime minister and his senior cabinet ministers were absent today at the opposition leader’s rebuttal to the budget.

Nazri was recently reported as saying that the Auditor-General's Report 2011 will be tabled one week after Budget 2013. 

Last week, PKR deputy president Azmin Ali slammed the delay in tabling of the audit report, asking whether the “government has a secret agenda to try and hide weaknesses and abuses (in government finances)”.

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