Point of View by Tun Hanif Omar (articles)

yipun78

Nothing resolved

I could feel the disgust of friends as they flayed the Government for allowing the apparent malpractices exposed in annual AG抯 reports to go on year after year ostensibly without proper resolution. No clear punitive action was taken against the guilty following last year抯 no-less-damning report. Tan Sri Ambrin Buang and his auditors have done well again but lack of enforcement and Cabinet follow-ups may again negate all the hard work.  

The ACA DG has announced that his agency had commenced investigations and that we should see the results soon. Good for him. It抯 about time our faith in the system is restored. If there are plausible reasons for some of the outlandish purchases, then we should be informed to dispel our bad perception of government抯 governance.

But the CID also has a role if it wants to play it. If the allegations smack of criminal breach of trust, cheating or any of the penal code offences, it抯 the department抯 duty to investigate without waiting for a report to be lodged. Explanatory statements made to the auditors and the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee by ministry and departmental officers are admissible in evidence.  

Wilful malfeasance must be adequately punished so that others will be sufficiently deterred. The AG抯 report bears out the perception that in government spending, we sometimes do not get our money抯 worth!  

And if, as suggested by Datuk Shahrir Samad, it is not that the civil service has not improved but that 搕he new ways of implementing projects