COMMENT | Stop treating Auditor-General's Report with contempt
COMMENT | Is stealing, larceny, misuse and abuse of power and money entrenched in the civil service? Have these become part of its culture? How else can one explain the issues pointed out in the Auditor-General’s Report year after year.
Is no one worried about the humongous sums of money that are misused? Why is no one ever held responsible for the lapses?
Ordinarily, the government would be quick to appoint task forces and special committees when even lesser amounts go missing. But when it comes to issues raised in the Auditor-General’s Report, there’s hardly a whimper.
Except for the media, which highlights these issues, it hardly draws any comments from officials under whose watch such discrepancies occurred. Year in and year out, the issue is quickly forgotten and despite the report being described as a “catalogue of abuses”, it’s business as usual for the government.
On Tuesday, auditor-general Nik Azman Nik Abdul Majid said that non-compliance with financial management has resulted in the issuing of irregular payments amounting to RM1.299 billion...
COMMENT | Is stealing, larceny, misuse and abuse of power and money entrenched in the civil service? Have these become part of its culture? How else can one explain the issues pointed out in the Auditor-General’s Report year after year.
Is no one worried about the humongous sums of money that are misused? Why is no one ever held responsible for the lapses?
Ordinarily, the government would be quick to appoint task forces and special committees when even lesser amounts go missing. But when it comes to issues raised in the Auditor-General’s Report, there’s hardly a whimper.
Except for the media, which highlights these issues, it hardly draws any comments from officials under whose watch such discrepancies occurred. Year in and year out, the issue is quickly forgotten and despite the report being described as a “catalogue of abuses”, it’s business as usual for the government.
On Tuesday, auditor-general Nik Azman Nik Abdul Majid said that non-compliance with financial management has resulted in the issuing of irregular payments amounting to RM1.299 billion, loss of public funds of RM11.45 million and wastage of RM8.87 million to the government in 2020.
He said that last year, the National Audit Department had conducted compliance audits on five federal agencies and submitted 19 recommendations for consideration for implementation.
“As of Dec 31, 2021, a total of 140 financial statements have been audited and awarded the Auditor General’s Certificate while seven financial statements are in the process of being audited.
“A total of 109 financial statements were awarded Clean Audit Certificate, 14 were awarded the Audit Certificate Based on Emphasis of Matter, 17 were given Audit Certificate with Reprimand,” Bernama quoted him as saying.
An annual circus
A reprimand is a slap on the wrist and saying “don’t do it again” but almost RM1.3 billion is no small amount of money. It came from millions of Malaysians through the taxes they paid - directly and indirectly.
If the payments were illegal, who authorised them and who made the payments? Shouldn’t heads of ministries and government departments be made answerable? So, what is going to happen next?
In a column two years ago, I described the events on the release of the report as “a circus that has come into town”.
I explained: “Why am I describing such a serious matter as a circus, you may ask? The answer is simple: Officialdom has helped turn this valuable piece of serious and painstaking work by dedicated and officers of integrity into being treated like parody or satire.
“No one takes anything seriously - edition after edition, the indiscretions are repeated by different players at different levels. And judging from similar actions in the past, almost all the perpetrators have got away scot-free, or with a slap on the wrist.
“Having already made their pile, a handful quit the civil service but others remain and continue to serve and milk the system.”
Slap on the wrist
According to Nik Azman, certain departments had meted out lenient punishment on wrongdoers for discrepancies or questionable actions cited in his previous reports.
“There are times we felt that certain departments meted out light punishment but we do not interfere because our job only involves audit findings. We will raise the issue of non-compliance and it is up to the internal investigation committee to decide on the punishment after investigating the matter,” he was quoted as saying.
Of the more than 1,000 officers who were identified as wrongdoers, only two were prosecuted while the others were punished through internal mechanisms such as the withholding of increments, salary cuts and fines. Over 604 were let off with warnings.
So, what is going to happen next? Will there be concerted efforts to recover the money which was paid out illegally or at least part of the money? Or has the Auditor-General’s Report become an annual charade to appease those who promote for more accountability and transparency of government (read: people’s) money?
Will there be prosecutions? Will the MACC go through the report page by page and line by line? Does anyone in authority take the report seriously and pull up the errant officials or will it be forgiven and forgotten?
About 20 years ago, when initial payments were made for the Port Klang Free Zone, the auditor-general had already warned that the Port Klang Authority would become insolvent.
Nobody paid heed and it was a policy of borrow, borrow and borrow. With accrued interest, the amount ballooned to RM12.4 billion. Eventually, the government had to bail out the authority and until today, it is making payments to the tune of RM200 million annually.
Has anyone learnt their lessons? The obvious answer is a big fat “No”, and unless they are named, shamed and taken to court, the shenanigans will continue.
R NADESWARAN is a veteran journalist and writes on bread-and-butter issues. Comments: citizen.nades22@gmail.com
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
