When the chief secretary to the government said only a few out of 1.5 million public servants were involved in misconduct as raised in the Auditor-General’s Report, I wasn’t too sure whether he was trying to give excuses or provide rational explanations.  

Does it matter only a few are involved if the adverse impact on government finance and performance is big? Sometimes one is too many. We only have one National Feedlot Corporation (NFC), one Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) and one 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

We just need one incompetent or one corrupt officer to incur millions of overpayment. We need only one N17 clerk to siphon RM1 million of unclaimed money from the Treasury. For the information of those unfamiliar with public service, civil servants with N17 grade are clerks with SPM qualification. 

Just to stretch my argument a little more, we need only one Adolf Hitler and one Joseph Stalin. We must all know our sense of proportion when making judgments and comments.  

I think the chief secretary should be more forceful and determined in his statement. By stating that only a few are involved, he was not attaching importance to the issues confronting the public service. It was not a few who are involved; it is the damage caused and amount of money siphoned or wasted.  

Take the case of the N17 clerk in the Accountant-General’s Office who was accused of having embezzled RM1 million of unclaimed money. First would this case ever be revealed to the public if the auditor-general had not identified and highlighted it? Second, I am sure this clerk has superior officers within the department. Were they not culpable, at least from the supervisory and negligence point of view?  

Third, why despite police and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) reports made, investigations have not yielded any result so far? I see a lackadaisical attitude everywhere, not just within the Accountant-General’s Department but also in the Treasury, the police and MACC.

For those familiar with auditing, there is no way auditors could identify and comb through all the records and processes of a department being audited. For every case identified, probably five would go unnoticed or undetected. So please don’t congratulate ourselves if the number reported is small. Besides, as mentioned earlier, we should always look at the damage done, not number or frequency of occurrence.  

I commend the chief secretary for announcing and taking more concrete measures to act on the criticisms of Auditor-General’s Report. I must say some of the steps being taken are transparent, definitive, time-based, and impartial. I like particularly the monitoring processes being taken to resolve each of the auditor-general’s admonitions. I also like the idea that senior officers from outside those ministries under investigation are appointed as members of the investigation teams.

However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. What the chief secretary has recommended are ‘inputs’. I await the ‘outputs’ and ‘outcomes’ next year.