YOURSAY | 'Audit report not a shield against responsibility.'

PM: KWAP's RM200m loss a lesson against relying solely on audit firms

PinkJaguar7289: Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, saying “two international audit firms approved it” sounds less like accountability and more like passing the buck.

This RM200 million loss happened under your watch as both prime minister and finance minister.

Nobody is saying you personally signed the investment, but leadership means taking responsibility for the system you oversee.

You cannot condemn past governments by saying ministers must answer for failures, then defend your own administration by saying the professionals and auditors handled everything.

If that logic is accepted, every financial scandal can simply blame consultants, auditors and investment committees.

The real questions are simple: Who approved the investment? What red flags were missed? Who failed in due diligence? Was there negligence, and will anyone be held accountable?

An audit report is not a shield against responsibility. When public retirement money is lost, “we relied on the auditors” is an explanation, not an excuse.

You cannot demand accountability for yesterday’s government, then call today’s loss merely a “lesson” when it happens under your own watch.

World Citizen: Audit firms just audit a company's accounts. They do not assess the viability of projects, and they are not involved in investment decisions. What is Anwar talking about?

All investment decisions are made after scrutiny by the investment panel and the management team of the company.

Sometimes outside professional advice from consultants and other professionals is sought.

If the Retirement Fund (Incorporated) (KWAP) has done the "internal assessments, independent due diligence, and reviews of the company’s financial, legal, and operational standing due diligence" as Anwar claims, then obviously these were not done properly, or some hanky panky has happened.

It is not quite fathomable that just one person, eFishery co-founder Gibran Huzaifah, or a few of his closely related characters, can con big-time investors like KWAP and others to the tune of RM200 million.

This should not have been treated as one of those Ponzi schemes. There is something terribly wrong in this story.

KWAP making RM12.9 billion in the previous year does not absolve the company from this massive investment loss.

Please investigate this case thoroughly and honestly.

Apanama is back: KWAP is a statutory body under the purview of the Finance Ministry.

The prime minister and finance minister ultimately oversee its operations. Anwar, the buck stops with you.

Anwar cannot say, “But ever since I took over the Finance Ministry, there has never been any interference from the government. And there was no need (for KWAP) to bring their investment proposals to the government or the finance minister for consideration.”

You cannot hide behind independence to absolve yourself of responsibility for monitoring.

Unless there is a monitoring, check and balance mechanism established by your ministry for KWAP. If none, why?

So what are you talking about, Anwar? When a company's directors cook the books to look good for the auditors, the auditors will approve if they find no issues with the cooked-up figures.

Anwar, why are you saying "relying on audit firms should not be the sole basis for investment decisions"?

Common sense will tell you that auditors are just auditors. Even if the books are cooked, they can't find any accounting anomalies.

Be responsible for the KWAP fiasco. The profit does not justify the RM200 million loss. Fraud is fraud. Unless you people plan to forget and move on like the football scandal.

Knucklehead2: Pointing fingers at audit firms is lazy politics.

KWAP didn’t lose RM200m because auditors failed; it lost because its investment panel signed off on a deal without smelling the rot. The whole investment panel must be sacked!

Auditors provide assurance, not investment wisdom. If KWAP’s governance process - internal assessments, due diligence, legal and operational reviews - still green-lit a fraud, then the weakness lies in risk management, not in the audit stamp.

Stop scapegoating auditors and start fixing the system that allowed a start-up founder already guilty of embezzlement to walk away with pension money.

R_A_G: Did KWAP not learn from their missteps in the 1MDB scandal? Now this?

They must weed out the perpetrators, or more lessons will be learned, and retirement money will go down the drain. Who's responsible? Nobody in jail?

GreenViper3390: This is not about reliance on audit firms. Let MACC investigate if it's about failed governance, internal controls, and kickbacks.

Mechi: No excuse for the huge loss, Mr Finance Minister. Your due diligence officers must have taken shortcuts or been part of the conspiracy. They must be identified. It will happen again soon.

Corruption is now embedded into our culture!!

Bornean: Uh? That's it? Nobody's fault? So simple?

The finance minister is responsible, lah.

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