‘It’s not your father’s money’

The Auditor-General's Report 2010 is not about politics or the opposition, it is simply about the 'mismanagement of our money'.

COMMENT

The 2010 Auditor General’s Report is a voluminous document with horrifying mentions of repeated trangresions by the authorities.

It offered more or less the same findings contained in reports of preceding years , which is bizzarre overpricing, negligence, incompetency and officious arrogance.

If you are perplexed as to why the opposition should bicker about the report then we shall have to explain to you in as simple terms as possible.

This is not about politics or the opposition. This is beyond the opposition. This is about the mismanagement of our money.

And mismanagement of our money deserves to be treated as a cause of concern. We are talking about possible fraud and deception.

The short answer to the question then as to why the opposition are irked by the AG’s Report as are all right thinking Malaysians is that the money being treated isn’t the property of the transgressors.

BN government’s deception

That being so, the administration of the money and the application of the funds thereof, must be done with utmost care.

It’s not your father’s money. That is the short answer.

The long answer is, Malaysians are fed up with the deception and misappropriation of funds.

For the year 2010, the government approved a budget of RM149 billion for operating expenditure (opex).

This wasn’t enough and the government had to increase the opex to RM151 billion.

The report noted that nine ministries had overspent. Here is where all of us should be concerned. This is taxpayers money being spent on opex.

The two billion could have been spent on capital expenditure (capex) which builds capacity to create more wealth.

Now, Malaysians are equally outraged by the revelations of the 2010 Auditor-General Reports on the continuing financial scandals, hanky-panky and gross financial negligence in government.

Bizzarre overpricing

We are horrified to learn for example that the National Sports Institute acquired 23 horses totalling RM5.66 million without a Financial Ministry go-ahead.

None of these horses competed in two recommended international championships.

Then we have the case of the RM142 million RazakSAT satellite malfunctioning barely a year after being commissioned.

Wait, we have more disclosures in the AG Report 2010.

The Malaysian Marine Parks Department spent a whopping RM56,350 for a pair of night vision Marine binoculars. They paid 29 times more than the binocular’s market value of RM1,940 a pair.

They also paid the same amount for another pair of night vision Bushnell binoculars, or 1,893% more than its actual price of RM2,827.

We are once again appalled at the incompetence of front line workers incapable of appreciating the importance of proper placement of decimal points and making accounting mistakes that have resulted in wasteful overspending.

These should not have happened if there are efficient and proper internal audit systems.

As the result of a laid back attitude, we are told of stories where a pensioner received RM21,433 a month instead of RM214.33 for 16 months! The mistake was detected after more than a year.

The officer who finally detected the mistake should be a given a merit order.

We are also dismayed of hearing Giatmara Centre mistakenly paying RM170 per kg instead of RM1.70 per kg for sugar for a poverty eradication programme or RM25, 500 for 150 kg of sugar!

This must be a special kind of sugar.

Repeated irregularities

What about the ‘village-fool’ remark that the Chief Secretary to the Government Sidek Hassan made in response to the AG’s Report?

Sidek’s remark is simply saying he is not worried and that the problem has been dealt with.

Him saying he has sent circulars asking officials to exercise more discipline is in itself a negligent expression and an act of gross callousness.

I am afraid, the public isn’t that forgiving.

Sidek’s call to all departments and agencies to take heed of the AG’s comments and views is is annual repeated reaction.

Which goes to show, that what I said about the same mistakes being repeated did take place, otherwise, Sidek wouldn’t have to repeat his annual reaction would he?

No wonder then, there was this need to delay the submission of the 2010 Auditor-General’s Report to ensure that it would not completely overshadow Najib’s 2012 Budget.

Otherwise, the Finance Minister’s charitable overtures would be overshadowed and overwhelmed by the over 1,300 pages of exposes of financial irregularities, hanky-panky as well as misappropriation of public funds in the first full year of PM Najib Tun Razak’s premiership.

The writer is a former Umno state assemblyman and a FMT columnist. This is an excerpt from his blog sakmongkolak47.