Only ONE out of 175 civil servants implicated in financial wrongdoings sacked

KUALA LUMPUR: Only one civil servant has been sacked from service so far, following the Auditor-General's 2012 Report which implicated 175 government officers in 121 cases of financial wrongdoing.

"A total of 85 officers were found guilty after disciplinary proceedings were initiated, and of that number, one officer was sacked," Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Ali Hamsa said today.

The rest, who were found guilty, were either fined or slapped with warnings that saw their promotions and increments frozen for a year or more.

Commenting on the AG's recommendation for 111 types of punitive action to be taken against the 175 government officers for financial wrongdoings like graft, misuse of power and other misdemeanors such as negligence while on duty, Ali Hamsa said:

- only 85 were found guilty;

- 23 were declared innocent; and

- 67 are in the midst of disciplinary and surcharge proceedings, or facing court action.

Speaking to newsmen at a Session With The Media on The Auditor-General's Report 2013 Series 3 at Angkasapuri here, he said the number of officers involved in wrongdoing is very small compared to the total number of government officers.

"I wouldn't even say they make up the 'tip of the iceberg', as the numbers are smaller than that," Ali Hamsa said as he defended the civil service against allegations of graft.

He said the action taken by the government proves that it is serious in weeding out corruption and financial wrongdoings.

"Malaysia is the only country that presents the AG's report and holds a town hall session with the media on it. This is how transparent and open we are trying to be," he added.

From a total of 80 punitive actions recommended in the AG's 2013 Report (Series 1 and 2), disciplinary and surcharge (reimbursing the government) proceedings will commence on 19 recommendations involving 48 officers.

"(We found) that there was no solid basis for action to be taken on 55 recommendations as they did not involve irregularities but happened due to weaknesses in the system, procedures and current regulations," Ali Hamsa said, adding that six others are still in the investigation process.

The secretaries-general of all ministries and directors-general of all departments were present at the session with the media.

Meanwhile, it was revealed that the Finance Ministry has received permission from the Attorney-General's Chambers to take action against an officer from the Accountant-General's Department who embezzled RM995,031.41 of unclaimed money in 2011.

The ministry's deputy secretary-general Datuk Mat Nor Nawi, said the "green light" from the AG was received on Sept 18.

"We could not take action before this because the case was still under investigation. It would not be fair to take disciplinary action against the officer involved then.

"The AG said there was no need to wait for the police (to complete investigations), and that the ministry may take disciplinary action simultaneously, so this morning, the Accountant-General's Department decided to act," he said when replying to a question during the media session.

The Auditor-General's report tabled on Monday stated that the loss of the money was detected on March 3 and 10, 2011, leading to reports being lodged with the police and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.

Last updated on 13 November 2014 - 04:29am

Vathani Panirchellvum

Grilled by media, officials struggle to answer leakage in auditor’s report

BY ANISAH SHUKRY

12 November 2014

Putrajaya’s meeting with the media over the 2013 Auditor-General (A-G) Report today saw several top public officers struggle to provide concrete answers on the financial discrepancies highlighted in the third series of the report.

Laughter from confused journalists erupted in the hall in Angkasapuri when the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry explained that it had been driven by “kasih” (love) to bypass the official national database to select participants for the RM1.3 billion 1Azam poverty eradication programme.

The report, which was released on Monday, found that the programme’s failure to select participants through the eKasih database had resulted in the non-participation of the poor and hard-core poor.

“We admit that there were participants who did not join the programme though the eKasih system,” said Datuk Sabariah Hassan, the secretary-general for the ministry.

“But at the same time, through that programme, we 'kasihkan' (poured our love) on them. In the Women’s Ministry, there are 55 assistants who are from the hard-core poor, so we chose them ourselves and we 'kasihkan' them in this programme.”

Sabariah’s reply prompted one reporter to ask if the participants had not been “loved” enough by the ministry, given that less than half were able to add RM300 to their monthly household income.

“We have provided them with training, help in terms of materials, support… but they have to make an effort themselves. If they don’t make any effort, they won’t achieve any results,” said Sabariah.

The report said that only 49.82% of 265 participants interviewed said they were able to increase their household income by RM300, which was the ministry’s target.

The programme is jointly implemented by the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, the Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry Ministry, Sabah’s Agriculture and Food Industry Ministry and Sarawak’s Welfare, Women and Family Development Ministry.

The secretary-general of the Agriculture Ministry, Datuk Mohd Arif Ab Rahman, said there was “nothing we can do” about participants who failed to take advantage of the aid given to them by the government.

“We give these people chickens to rear, yet they sell all of them off and the money is gone. When we check up on them, only the chicken coop is left, here is really nothing we can do,” he said.

Arif also refused to answer a question from the media on the controversial National Feedlot Corporation (NFCorp) scandal, saying that he believed the case was closed.

“I think that the NFC case has closed. We have returned all of the NFC’s land to the state government. I think this question is irrelevant to the session.”

As of September this year, NFCorp repaid only RM34.98 million of its RM250 million loan for the cattle-rearing project. Repayments for this year have yet to start, prompting Putrajaya to take legal action against the company.

Meanwhile, Datuk Seri Khalid Shariff, the secretary-general of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, told the media that his staff could not yet do anything about the 121,664 traffic summonses issued to foreign vehicles that were unsettled, as reported in the report.

He said they could only wait for the RM30 million Automated Number Plate Recognition to be implemented, although he did not reveal when this would happen.

The report had found that RM7.63 million of traffic summons was left unpaid, and Singaporeans topped the total number of summonses with 84,604, followed by Brunei with 25,803.

When grilled on the nearly RM12 million in pensions paid to deceased retired military personnel, Defence Ministry Secretary-General Datuk Seri Dr Ismail Ahmad vowed that his staff “would improve”.

This pledge was repeated by senior officials from the Education Ministry, the Tourism and Culture Ministry, and the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia when discrepancies in their respective ministries were brought up in the townhall session.

However, Chief Secretary to the government Tan Sri Ali Hamsa urged the media to highlight “positive” reports in the A-G report rather than focusing only on the millions of public funds lost each year.

He said the number of errant civil servants were “smaller than the tip of the iceberg”.

“We are the only country that presents the A-G report, and then have a town-hall meeting. We are very open.”

Only one official sacked so far over A-G report, chief secretary says

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 12 — Only one government officer from a total of 108 recommended for punitive action by the Auditor-General in its 2012 report had been sacked, Chief Secretary to the government, Tan Sri Ali Hamsa revealed today.

Ali said other officers found guilty had been either fined or warned and had their emoluments frozen, adding that the actions proved government seriousness in weeding out corruption as often highlighted by the AG department in its yearly audit.

He defended the government against allegations of graft and claimed the cases of financial misappropriation in the respective ministries have decreased bar a few minor exceptions.

“If you look at the numbers you can see the cases have decreased and there are no recurrences in the respective ministries,” Ali told a town hall meeting on the third series of the 2013 AG report.

“But there are some offences repeated in different ministries although generaly the trend is downwards,” he added.

For 2013 and in the first and second series of the report, Ali said 80 punitive recommendations were made and 19 recommendations involving 48 officers have been identified for disciplinary proceeding.

He added that 55 of the recommendations had no strong basis for action since it did not involve irregularities but “weaknesses in the system, procedure and current regulations.”

Meanwhile for the 2012 report out of  111 punitive recommendations, 100  were acted upon with 175 officials implicated, leading to 85 being penalised while 23 were found to be innocent.

Ali said the government’s transformation programme had enabled immediate action to be taken to rectify the problems highlighted by the AG while for punitive recommendations, disciplinary committees were immediately convened after the preliminary AG report was tabled in Parliament.

“I think we are the only country that presents its AG report and holds a town hall meeting like this.

“It shows how open we are. We should give credit to Malaysia,” he said.

Yesterday Tun Daim Zainuddin urged the Najib administration to sack government officials responsible for the millions in wasted funds noted by federal auditors as an example for others not to repeat the same mistakes

The still-influential former finance minister said the inefficacy of Putrajaya’s disciplinary action over wastage contained in the Auditor-General’s Report was evident from the increased number of financial irregularities highlighted in the final series of the 2013 report released yesterday.

The final series of A-G’s Report for 2013 was released yesterday to the usual teeth-gnashing from the public that greets the annual highlights of the financial mismanagement and abuses by government that cost taxpayers billions of ringgit each year.

One of the more notable scandals that arose from the reports’ findings was the RM250 million National Feedlot Centre issue in 2012, which had then cost Wanita Umno chief Datuk Seri Shahrizat Jalil her seat in the Cabinet.

- See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/only-one-official-sacked-so-far-over-ag-report-chief-secretary-says#sthash.ndY3OtDK.dpuf

PAC to haul up 13 ministries over issues raised by A-G

KUALA LUMPUR: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will question 13 ministries and several government agencies to clarify issues brought up in the 2013 (series three) Auditor-General report.

PAC chairman Nur Jazlan Mohamed said that the ministries and agencies involved would be called up from January next year.

“We are shocked by the number of issues in the latest report. Although some are not major and only involve small allocations but we want to know where mistakes were made,” he said at a press conference in Parliament house yesterday.

Nur Jazlan said the increased number of cases could be because it was released after Budget 2015, but it was still PAC’s responsibility to look into them.

He said there were seven categories under which the ministries and agencies were audited on, such as programmes organised, projects, technology and information technology, privatisation and company affairs.

The Education Ministry is expected to provide an explanation on RM633mil spent on 1Bestarinet programme, which did not yield expected results.

The Home Ministry and the Royal Malaysian Police, would also be hauled up to explain the management of revenue collected through traffic summons.

PAC would also investigate the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro Based Industry over the management of padi seedlings subsidies given to farmers.

The ministries to be called up include the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, the Health Ministry and the Transport Ministry.