Huge black hole in GTP/NKRA – Ravinder Singh

A few days ago the Prime Minister proudly announced the "successes" of the GTP/NKRA.

What is government transformation if nothing is done about the “stupid” people in government, ie the heads of departments who are milking the treasury dry by their procurement of goods and services at prices that are dozens, nay even hundreds, of times higher than what you and I can get the same for?

Why has this vital area that is crying for action to be taken not in the GTP/NKRAs?

Leaving this area out of the GTP/NKRA, which is surely a deliberate act, is an affront to the Auditor General’s reports as the reports are meant to show weaknesses and malpractices in the system and for effective remedial action to be taken.

The MACC on its part has ingeniously washed its hands of this matter by saying that the officers who spend public money like the treasury is a bottomless pit are “stupid” people, and stupidity is not a crime.

However, I’m sure they are not as stupid when spending their own money. None of them would pay RM40,000 for a laptop if they were  paying for it out of their own pockets, but “stupidly” do so with public money. Malaysia boleh!

Shouldn’t the government transformation programme have the replacement of “stupid” civil servants with smart ones as one of its top priorities to improve the civil service? Yet this is completely omitted from the GTP and its NKRAs.

So is it wrong for taxpayers to “perceive” this omission as government endorsement of all the malpractices reported by the Auditor General, even government policy that certain people be enriched by this thievery?

Looks like the government is proud to inform the public through the Auditor General’s reports that its “development expenditure” is being well used by the purchase of RM40,000 laptops and RM3,000 wall clocks, among a myriad other items similarly overpriced by tens, even hundreds of times their market price.

* Ravinder Singh reads The Malaysian Insider