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Thursday, September 4, 2008

malaysiakini Reports on MISSING LINK for the WANTON WASTAGE

So far the Horror Story on how many billions of ringgit have been lost in the Auditor-General's Annual Report is about RM1.5billion and rising.

You can read the AG's Report on their web-site but there is no English translation except in the correction of press articles - they are quite precise.

malaysiakini has this article headed Special unit to do spot-checks on gov't depts.

While the actions of the AG's office can prevent minor mistakes and negligence from developing into massive losses, it seems to me that having more reports will not do much to stem leakages unless there is a more positive control and strict actions taken against those responsible for the losses.

For example, the malaysiakini article reports

"When asked about the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) probe on the irregularities in financial management as highlighted in the Auditor-General's Report 2007, Ambrin said that "all information is available on the AG's website" and it was up to the ACA to investigate.

"The website is open to the public and to the media. So there is no reason for the ACA not to access the website," said Ambrin."


This is a major flaw that must be addressed if Malaysia is not to keep losing billions each year on account of negligence and corruption.
Surely it is possible for the AG's office to submit its official report to the PM's office with a copy to the ACA with some defined criteria to investigate wrong-doings like for example:

1.Project exceeds budget by 15%
2.Project completion delayed by 3 months
3.Variation orders more than 20% of project
4.Project exceeds budget by more than RM5m
5.Ministry overall budget exceeded by RM50m or 15% whichever is more.

Already the government's spending is growing out of control and we really need to control the monies more diligently. Since we are paying for 2 Finance Ministers, maybe one of them should do allocations and the other take control of prudence and corrective actions?
Remember the oil revenue will soon be gone and then we may not be able to pay even one Finance Minister.

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