The Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4) is sick of the same lack of accountability in government and urged the minister in charge, Paul Low, today to end its forgiving ways.

Combing through the second series of the 2013 Auditor-General’s Report, C4 pointed out more of the same wastefulness and inefficiency that indicates a fundamentally bleeding administration.

However, like the first report released in April, C4 questioned whether the government would again claim that no element of graft was involved, after several months have passed, leaving the guilty unpunished.

"Political will has to be manifest in stemming the plague that has long been entrenched in the working habits of our civil service.

“This must entail naming, shaming and punishing errant civil servants, even to the point of dismissals," C4 said in a press statement.

C4 said that despite the public outcry and media frenzy, Malaysia's chief secretary and top public official had declared that there were no elements of graft in the first series for 2013, and attributed many of the failures to disciplinary and negligence factors.

Only one civil servant was sacked as a result of the Auditor-General's Report for 2012 from cases involving 152 individuals.

The NGO said that even though the government last week forced top civil servants to personally address media queries on problems raised in the second series of the Auditor-General's Report 2013, this barely scratched the surface.

C4 called the move a mere "shining a light into a black hole of mismanagement involving public procurement and delivery".

        

It noted how Felda flouted its own rules by avoiding open tenders in 160 procurement projects from 2010 to 2012, worth RM3.6 million.

The Sarawak government, it said, failed even in a most basic task to provide clean water.

The audit report also noted that out of 13 sites of the Sarawak Rural Treated Water Delivery Project checked, only nine were completed. Poor workmanship, broken pipes and weak monitoring by relevant authorities, were pointed out.

In Labuan, a 6.6km road project was re-tendered to a second private company and the final road constructed was significantly shorter .

Other parts of the audit report highlighted by C4 included long delays, of up to 909 days , in building full boarding schools for rural areas, and shoddy work in upgrading the Sentul Police Station for RM64 million, even as it was awarded to a private contractor through direct negotiations.

The Kuala Lumpur-based NGO then made three recommendations to the government. The first was directed at Governance and Transparency Mminister Paul Low, who sits under the Prime Minister's Department, calling on Low to exercise his powers.

 

"After more than a year in office, Minister Paul Low, honeymooning is long over, and he must take a tough stance against corruption, and showcase a concrete plan of action for punitive action to be taken against wrongdoers in the various ministries involved," C4 said.

The government also has to give full disclosure on contracts dished out and look into the setting up of an independent public sector Ombudsman for good governance, it added.