Yes, there is a God

From RM200 million incinerators without knowing how to operate them, to wall clocks, scanners and "miscellaneous items" amounting to RM9 million – ie 7,200 times over budget to  throwing away custom-made shoes which did not meet specs to  RM1.6 million for K-Pop groups to RM1.26 million on charge cards to guns and handcuffs for the police gone missing to RM300,000 claims for a trip which cost less than RM50,000 to welfare aid "paid out" to people who have died to over priced CCTVs to spending RM320,000 on FB and Twitter. I can go on and on but you know the story already.

Mohsin Abdullah, fz.com

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US POLITICIANS, presidents especially, love to end their speeches with "God bless America". I don't know about America but as far as Malaysia goes – well, God has indeed blessed this country of ours. In fact God "loves" Malaysia.

 

I mean how do you explain that despite all the wastages of public funds which runs into billions of ringgit (as highlighted by the Auditor-General's Report 2013 released on Oct 1), we are not or rather we have not gone "bust". Divine intervention, surely.

 

From RM200 million incinerators without knowing how to operate them, to wall clocks, scanners and "miscellaneous items" amounting to RM9 million – ie 7,200 times over budget to  throwing away custom-made shoes which did not meet specs to  RM1.6 million for K-Pop groups to RM1.26 million on charge cards to guns and handcuffs for the police gone missing to RM300,000 claims for a trip which cost less than RM50,000 to welfare aid "paid out" to people who have died to over priced CCTVs to spending RM320,000 on FB and Twitter. I can go on and on but you know the story already .

 

Other countries might have crumbled and gone bankrupt. But not us. We have God to thank for that and I am not being religious.

  

What's sickening is we have heard of "problems" before. In fact, many times before. Every AG's report for years has been exposing such blatant overspending and wastages. And we cringed each time we read the wastages and leakages revealed in the reports. And it became a case of which report is the worst.  

 

To consumer advocate Dr Jacob George, "the 2012 Auditor-General's Report presented to Parliament is nothing new in comparison to previous reports submitted to Parliament for the past 30 years".

 

And the word "wastage" wrote Dr George in his blog, "is far too politically abused – it should be reworded as 'criminal breach of trust'  instead".

 

We have seen in the past, task forces and "jawatankuasa khas" formed to probe and investigate. But all came to nought. Well to be fair, almost nought. And chances are we will see many more task forces and "jawatankuasa khas" be formed again with the same objective – probe and investigate. 

 

Ministers will (if they have not already) say out loud: "I've instructed my officers to leave no stones unturned." But chances are no one will be punished. No want will take responsibility. 

 

Hence I can't help but ask – if that being the case, why have such reports in the first place? Imagine how Tan Sri Ambrin Buang and his staff are feeling. After having gone through a lot of hardship and painstaking work to come up with such a report, only to see follow-up action wanting.

 

And what about us the rakyat – don't we deserve to see an end of these abuses? 

 

To DAP MP Teo Nie Ching, the question to ask is if the "report is serious or mere window-dressing?"

 

Yes, we know the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is already working on it. But the committee was at it previously, working on previous "exposé" but without much success. 

 

Another DAP MP, Lim Guan Eng, has suggested the setting-up of a high-powered three-man panel instead.

 

The three, said Lim, should be Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and the AG Tan Sri Ambrin himself. 

 

This panel, as Lim sees it, can investigate and act against those found to have misused taxpayers' money.    

 

It's clear Lim does not have much confidence in the PAC dishing out enforcement as "it is controlled by the government given its 9:5 ratio" as far as member composition goes.

 

But to new PAC chairman Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed, the opposition is being unfair in calling the committee "useless" and "irrelevant".

 

Said Jazlan on the day the AG's reprt was released: "They are not being fair to the PAC. We are in the midst of reading the report. And one cannot expect a response this fast."

 

Agreed. No response can be fast enough at that juncture. But then he went on say "the next course of action would take a longer time as further inquiries need to be carried out". That, although logical, somehow poured cold water on the "flames of optimism" so to speak.

  

Still we pray for an endgame this time as we have been lucky so far for being "blessed" as said earlier.

 

Despite all the "nonsense" that has happened, we thank God that the country did go down on its knees or something worse, as said earlier also.

 

But should the "nonsense" continues, will God continue to love and bless this country of ours? Only God knows, obviously.

 

I must end with the words of PAS' Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat: "We may escape the audit in this world but hell awaits those who fail the audit of the Hereafter."

 

He's talking about "God's punishment" surely. I think, for these "sins", even atheists would pray for God's justice. This one time.