PETALING JAYA: As the Auditor-General’s report continues to highlight the hundreds of millions of ringgit lost to leakages, irregularities and wastage of public funds each year, a corruption crusader says the action taken to address the issues raised in the yearly audit must be part of each minister’s Key Performance Index (KPI).
Transparency International Malaysia president Dr Muhammad Mohan welcomed Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s order to his Cabinet members to pay close attention to the findings, and said all ministers should prioritise this and ensure appropriate actions were taken to address the issues raised.
In addition, he said ministers should also take corrective and preventive actions so that these issues would not happen again.
“This must be part of every minister’s KPI. The measure of success is to see a drastic reduction in such adverse findings in the next audit.
“This is very important because it can reduce leakages and corruption, which can positively impact the Corruption Perceptions Index scores in the future.
“Such direct actions are urgently needed for good governance in the public sector,” he said.
Dr Muhammad opined that more serious attention should be given to the report’s findings, as they were a clear barometer of how the nation was managed for good governance, integrity, transparency and accountability.
“So we hope the government will continue to give serious attention to this report, and those accountable for the abuses and failures should be removed from the system.
“If not, we will not be making progress. Let us not forget that these are taxpayer money at stake, with such abuses, negligence and waste should never be tolerated,” he added.
When asked if the report’s findings had previously received enough attention, Dr Muhammad replied, “unfortunately not”.
According to the records from the AG dashboard from 2011 to 2020, the action was still under way in three cases in 2015, one in 2016, seven in 2017, 27 in 2018, 78 in 2019 and 24 in 2020.
The dashboard allows the public to monitor the action taken on issues raised in the AG report from 2011 to 2021.
As for 2021, action is still in progress in 148 cases, while 120 have been resolved.
The dashboard shows that action has been completed for cases raised from 2011 to 2014.
Commenting on the dashboard, Dr Muhammad said it was useful for the public to monitor the number of findings, how many non-conformities had been closed and how many were still in progress.
“The public also must play a role in monitoring and raising questions about why such non-compliances have occurred and demanding answers and accountability. This is partly the problem too, where Malaysians are often reluctant to speak up or whistleblow when they see or know about wrongdoings being committed,” he said.
The Series 2 of the 2021 Auditor-General’s Report released on Thursday revealed that non-compliance in financial management had resulted in losses in public funds totalling RM158.08mil.
This included RM116.95mil in public fund losses, RM26.03mil in irregular payments and RM15.10mil in wastages.
Auditor-General Datuk Seri Nik Azman Nik Abdul Majid said that in 2021, seven topics related to audit compliance were carried out by four ministries and three federal agencies, involving audit reviews of RM1.127bil.
On Jan 18, Anwar said Cabinet members should focus on expenditure, leakages and failures to abide by regulations highlighted in the Auditor-General’s Report 2021.
“The Cabinet must give these matters serious attention so these mistakes will not be repeated,” he said after chairing the Cabinet meeting.
The Prime Minister pointed out that the AG report usually comes with recommendations and suggestions for rectifying the problems.