PKR parliamentarians today pointed out a discrepancy in the federal government's closing account statements for 2008.

Azan Ismail (PKR-Indera Mahkota) said the figure in the balance sheet of the government's Public Accounts statement did not tally with the financial statements.

The balance sheet indicated the amount of public funds totalling RM15.4 billion while the notes on the financial statements stated it as RM14.07 billion.

"This is a huge difference of RM1.327 billion, and during the debate on the finance ministry, we asked the minister to correct this mistake," said Azan.

Deputy Finance Minister Chor Chee Heung "did not understand" what the figures were all about and refused to rectify the mistake said Azan, who is also an auditor.

According to him, the matter was first brought up to Chor during the debate to pass a motion to approve the transfer of funds to the Development Funds Group.

Motion debated 'under protest'

Azan had also spotted a mistake in the balance sheet prepared for the budget for Pahang government, passed two weeks ago. It had the year 2008 instead of 2009.

This prompted the Pahang government to reconvene a special sitting to pass a corrected version as the mistake could only be rectified in the legislative assembly.

Yusmadi Yusoff (PKR-Balik Pulau) said that the opposition had to debate "under protest" when Chor still wanted to pass the motion "although he had acknowledged that he didn't understand it".

"Today, PKR was debating the motion under protest to protect the interest of the people even though we had told him that we could rectify the mistake together.

"...but I'm guessing the deputy minister's ego got in the way and he did not want to admit to the discrepency," said Yusmadi, a practicing lawyer.

He said that the chief secretary for the treasury Wan Abdul Aziz Wan Abdullah and the chief accountant Mohd Salleh Mahmud should have checked the figures before signing the financial statements.