Auditor-General Ambrin Buang sees "no reason" to audit 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), as it has been audited by a big international corporation.
 
"Why are we not auditing 1MDB? My answer is that its accounts have already been audited by one of the ‘big four’," Ambrin told a town hall meeting session with the media today, on the third series of the 2013 Auditor-General's Report that was released on Monday.
 
"So, there is no reason why we should come in again," he said, responding to media questions on why it had not taken any audit action on the controversial 1MDB.

1MDB, which is heavily in debt, has reported that auditing consultancy Deloitte has replaced accounting company KPMG  to complete the audit for its 2013 financial year.

"Auditing financial statements is a very labourious examination," Ambrin said.

The town hall meeting, which was started off last year, was held at Angkasapuri in Kuala Lumpur today, and it saw the government Chief Secretary Ali Hamsa bringing along secretaries-general and director-generals from various ministries and departments to clarify issues raised by the reporters.

Ali (left) said the overall cases raised in the Auditor-General’s Report 2013 have reduced if compared with the previous years, where a majority of the cases were caused by carelessness and failure to abide by the procedures.

"There were 495 audit queries, with 20 being clearly punitive, while 475 were corrective in nature. When we investigated further, some of them were found not guilty," Ali said.

While there was an increment in the number of reprimands, he said, the increment involved only queries for corrections, while the punitive cases reduced by 9.9 percent compared with the 2012 audit report.

MACC investigated two cases

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has investigated two cases involving the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry, he said.

"We have sacked one officer after the last report (Auditor-General’s Report 2012) was tabled, and those who found involved in crime will be sacked anyway," Ali said when asked to respond to former finance minister Daim Zainuddin’s call to sack the errant officers.

Daim said it would not suffice to merely give stern warnings, or impose other lesser methods of punishment.

However, Ali refused to name the errant officers, even as an act of deterrent to prevent further leakages and wastage, saying he would wait for action to be taken against them first. This was also to give them enough room to respond.

Ali then went on to say that Malaysia should be given credit for being the only government to hold a town hall session with media, which reflected its openness.

Disciplinary action initiated in RM995k theft

Meanwhile, the government has started disciplinary action against the Accountant-General’s Department officer who stole RM995,031.

This comes after the auditor-general reported his dissatisfaction over the lack of action in the matter.

On another matter, the Attorney-General’s Chambers has finally advised the Finance Ministry to take action on the matter, concurrently with the police investigation, ministry deputy secretary-general Mat Nor Nawi said.

Mat Nor said the Finance Ministry was of the opinion that it could only start disciplinary action once the police completed their investigation following two reports that were made in 2011.

The officer made off with RM995,031 in unclaimed money through falsification of documents and this was only discovered in March 2011. However, he was let off without any criminal action, the Auditor-General's Report 2013 states.


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