The Auditor-General's Report shows that the government has not been serious in its intention to be more fiscally disciplined and has been missing their own targets every year, IDEAS CEO Wan Saiful Wan Jan said today.

He said among the weaknesses and discrepancies mentioned are a payment of RM103.14 million by RTM to Telekom Malaysia before the contract was signed and a six years delay in a project under the Program Perumahan Rakyat in Sabah.

Wan Saiful ( left ) added that like the previous reports, the 2014 report mentions delays in contract signing, negligence, improper payments, and unreasonable delays in project delivery as among the causes for those problems.

“The report shows that the government has not been serious in its intention to be more fiscally disciplined. At the end of last month, the government tabled a supplementary bill for 2014 Budget.  Supplementary budgets have become a regular feature of this administration.  

"It shows incompetence on the side of our two finance ministers, Najib Razak and Husni Hanadzlah. Both Najib and Husni missed their own targets every year and if they were working elsewhere, they would probably have been sacked by now. Either that, or they do not understand how to show respect to the parliamentary processes of tabling national budgets. Their behaviour implies that the annual tabling of budgets is a waste of time because they never take it seriously anyway,” he said in a statement.

Wastage and inefficiencies every year

Wan Saiful added that the announcements of deficit target and budget cuts are merely empty talk because every year we see wastage and inefficiencies reported in the report and the request for supplementary budgets tabled again in parliament.

He said the Parliamentary Account Committee’s move to call for the suspension of ST15 rice subsidy programme due to the absence of standard operating procedure and transparent distribution system should be applauded.

"This call should prompt the responsible ministries and agencies to rectify the problem swiftly and to review the need and the procedures for the programme regularly."

In addition, said the supplementary bill was tabled when attention was focused on the 1MDB crisis and the arrests of many individuals under the Sedition Act.  

"Therefore, unlike previous supplementary bills, this was not well covered by the media and did not receive the public attention it ought to have."