Hot on the heels of the continuous wastage of public funds and other abuses as highlighted in the Auditor-General's Report 2012, a panel under the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) wants the government to form a special committee to act on the problems raised.

The MACC panel, Consultative and Prevention of Corruption Committee, which is chaired by Johan Jaafar, called on the Chief Secretary to the government, Ali Hamsa, to form the special committee to table proposals to prevent the recurrence of these problems.

"The panel also calls on state governments and government companies to take immediate action to rectify their weaknesses. We will support whatever steps are taken for further improve the civil service, so as to plug the loopholes to prevent corruption and abuse of power," Johan said.

"We also support the proposal for more frequent reports from the auditor-general, such as three times
annually, to enable more effective monitoring and supervision and for faster remedial measures to tackle these weaknesses," Johan said in a statement on behalf of the panel.

The other members of the MACC committee are Lim Kok Wing, Ishak Tambi Kechik, David Chua Kok Tee, Dr Zainal Abidin Abdul Majeed, Marimuthu Nadason, Dr Chin Yew Sin, Azman Ujang
Syed Akbar Ali, Zuraidah Atan and Wan Norhiyati Wan Ibrahim.

Various discrepancies and losses have been highlighted in the Auditor-General's Report 2012, which was tabled in Parliament on Oct 1. These include police losing their assets, the hiring of septuagenarians as security guards in schools, problems with the Kota Kinabalu airport runway and the giving of tenders directly to unqualified contractors.

Panel disappointed with discrepancies

The MACC panel expressed disappointment that despite the auditor-general highlighting similar problems in the past, these problems persisted, such as in the tender systems, the supply and procurement of goods as well as the standard operating procedures (SOP) of the various ministries, agencies, state governments and government-linked corporations.

"We take a serious view of these weaknesses, which not only can lead to abuse of power and corruption, but also undermine the government delivery system.

"The panel is concerned about the serious acts of negligence in the system of control and supervision, which have even resulted in dangerous assets, such as firearms, going missing from the storage," Johan said.

These discrepancies and the faults, he said, showed a lack of supervision of the suppliers and contractors by those concerned, resulting in shoddy work performance in some of the projects.


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