IT is deja vu all over again. Year in, year out the Auditor General’s Report makes the front pages of the nation’s newspapers for all the wrong reasons.
The 2017 Auditor General’s Report Series 2 is no different. It is a tale of missing millions, misappropriation, misstatements and miscalculations.
Like the previous Auditor General’s Reports, the 2017 report is a bad read.
Imagine RM1 billion worth of Goods and Services Tax refund being handed to two companies that were exempted from the service tax in the first place.
If that is not enough, picture this: RM279.2 million meant for 1Malaysia People-Friendly Houses was channelled elsewhere without the approval of the Finance Ministry. And the Auditor General’s Series 2 also uncovers defects in the Bukit Jalil Sports Complex.
It goes without saying that public money must be used responsibly. If not, public trust won’t be forthcoming.
No government can survive without public trust.
The way to ensure that the public continues to place its trust in the government of the day is by emplacing good governance practices in the management of public resources. People put in charge of managing public resources must have the highest standard of integrity. The minister, as representative of the cabinet, must take the responsibility to ensure that his ministry and the departments and entities under his charge have foolproof governance system in place.
Public servants, too, must be held to the highest standard of probity. It is true that entities within the ministry do have some leeway in achieving their outcomes but whatever the “free” space they have it must not veer from the accepted norms of governance.
Otherwise, governance would lose its robustness. Public bodies and public servants, and by extension ministers, cannot and must not wait for the Auditor General to make his annual trip to the Parliament to uncover breaches of governance. That is too late in the day to be of any good.
Missing millions is often hard to trace, let alone recover. Ministers and public servants must be of such probity that they will be the first line of “auditors” so to speak. Early “audits” keep public resources healthy.
The Council of Eminent Persons has a role to play here. The CEP, which was formed to help Pakatan Harapan government shape the machinery for the birth of New Malaysia, is well suited to play an oversight role in issues of governance.
Perhaps it could do this through an expanded Institutional Reform Committee of the council. Granted, the five-member CEP cannot get rid overnight issues that have been plaguing public institutions since time immemorial. Granted, too, it is the responsibility of the ministers to ensure public resources are handled responsibly. But the mere fact that the governance problem persists despite numerous audits tells us institutional reform must begin now. Otherwise, another bad read will be heading our way in 2018.