AG gives agencies better grades as revenues go up
After a delay of more than two weeks, the Auditor-General's Report 2011 was tabled in Parliament after Question Time this morning.
After a delay of more than two weeks, the Auditor-General's Report 2011 was tabled in Parliament after Question Time this morning.
A statement from the Auditor-General's Office states that the report consists of an audit of 456 financial statements, 413 of which have been certified as at today.
"Based on 456 financial statements of the government and its agencies for 2011, 388 (85.1 percent) financial statements were given an audit certification without reprimand," reads the statement from Auditor-General Ambrin Buang.
"(Another) 25 (5.5 percent) were given audit certification with a reprimand for not fully abiding to accounting standards. The remaining 43 (9.3 percent) are still in the process of being audited."
The 43 financial statements are all from state statutory bodies, state Islamic affairs councils and local councils.
The tabling of the audit report comes as the Budget 2013 debate is being wrapped up in the Dewan Rakyat. Each ministry will now respond to issues raised during the policy stage debate.
By convention, the Auditor-General's Report is tabled before the budget speech. This is the second year that it has been tabled after the budget debate.
Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz in defending the delayed tabling said this was to prevent distraction from the budget debate.
However, the opposition has described this as interference in parliamentary affairs and has also accused the government of attempting to avoid potential "time-bombs" in the revelations.
The Auditor-General's Report for 2010 had highlighted serious leakages in the National Feedlot Project which eventually led to Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, whose family operates the project, stepping down as women, family and community development minister.
‘Gov’t management has improved’
In the statement, Ambrin said some 547 recommendations were made to the federal government to rectify the weaknesses found while federal statutory bodies and state governments received 97 and 534 recommendation respectively.
He said the management of government agencies had improved this time, with 111 agencies (31.4 percent) receiving a four-star rating (very good) compared with the last audit report which saw only 77 agencies (21.6 percent) receiving that rating.
The government’s revenue had also improved by 16.1 percent from RM159.64 billion in 2010 to RM 185.42 billion in 2011 due to better tax collection by the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) and the Royal Malaysian Customs Department.
“The IRB collected a total of RM109.61 billion in 2011, an increase of 26.7 percent from 2010. The Customs Department collected RM30.38 billion in 2011, an increase of 7.9 percent compared with2010,” Ambrin added.
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