There is no insidious agenda behind the delayed tabling of the Auditor-General's Report 2011, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz said today.

"If the government really wants to hide something, it is better not to have released the report. But the report came out in the end," reasoned the de-facto law minister in response to charges from Opposition MPs.

Speaking at a press conference in the Parliament lobby this afternoon, Nazri said further proof was in the praise of the Pakatan-ruled states for good financial management and the audit report highlighting that the government made more money this year.

NONE These, he said, refuted allegations that the government intentionally delayed the audit report or was hiding certain things.

The Auditor-General’s Report 2011 was tabled in Parliament after Question Times this morning.

There was no reason, Nazri added,  for the government to delay positive reports on it earnings and the fact that glowing reports on Pakatan states were present showed that there was no cover-up in the document.

Asked about allegations by Indera Mahkota MP Azan Ismail ( right ) that certain things were retracted from the Auditor-General’s Report, Nazri rubbished such claims.

"Only an evil person would ask of such evil things," he said, stressing again that there was no hanky-panky in the audit report.

In the Dewan Rakyat earlier, two opposition lawmakers took the government to task over its two-week delay in tabling the 2011 audit report.

"This ... (has prevented) parliamentarians from doing their work (in debating Budget 2013)," Fong Po Kuan (DAP-Batu Gajah) said when raising a point of order after Question Time in the morning.

M Kulasegaran (DAP-Ipoh Barat) lent support, asking if there had been interference from the executive.

NONE Kulasegaran ( right ) pointed out that the Westminster parliamentary convention dictated that the audit report should be tabled together with the budget.

However, deputy speaker Wan Junaidy Jaafar dismissed their complaints, saying that to the best of his knowledge, there was no convention on tabling a report at a specific time.

"Any paper is tabled when the House is in session, at any time. It doesn't matter," Wan Junaidy said.

He told the MPs that there would be time during debate at the committee stage to discuss the issues highlighted in the audit report.

The national audit report is traditionally tabled with or immediately after the budget is tabled, but it was delayed for two weeks after the tabling of the Supply Bill last year. This delay was repeated this year as well.

The delay caused the Opposition Mps to raise an outcry. They accused the government of delaying the report to hide irregularities in government finances.

However, the government, maintained that everything was above board, explaining that the delay in tabling the audit report was the budget to be debated first at the policy stage before matters highlighted in the report were brought up that could possibly eclipse the budget.

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