Auditor-General's Report unjustifiable, says 'transparency minister'

“I am not justifying the mismanagement there,” he said. He however noted that the government was a big organisation comprising 1.4 million civil servants and the wrongdoings could be caused by anything from “staff carelessness to corruption.”

There was a need to scrutinise the results of the report, he said, and stressed that the government needed to deal with the root cause of the problems.

“(We need to) think of ways to implement changes, particularly in internal control systems and accountability,” Low told Astro AWANI in a recent interview.

Low, who is in charge of the Transparency, Integrity, Governance and Human Rights portfolio, said one of the areas needed to be improved is the disciplinary process for civil servants.

“I understand these are established structures and it would take time to make changes but the Public Service Department and those in charge need to do it,” he said.

He also noted that the internal auditing and auditors in each ministry were still lacking.

“We need to make them more independent of the ministries. To do that, these internal auditors should report directly to their directors or to the Auditor-General, or even to the new ‘Governance & Integrity’ oversight body that my department will be spearheading,” he said.

On Pakatan Rakyat’s proposal to have a special three-men committee comprising of the opposition leader, the auditor-general and the deputy prime minister as chairman, Low said it was not appropriate to replace the current Public Accounts Committee(PAC).

“The PAC’s role is to hold inquiries. They examine the report and hold inquiries, I think they can make some recommendation,” he said.

He said the PAC could not consist of government officers or administrators as it was a parliamentary committee.

“I don't see what else they (Pakatan) want them to do. If you want them to be administrators, that has to be done by the civil servants themselves. I fail to see the need for a new committee that goes against the current PAC.”

Low said it was good that the Auditor-General speaks to the PAC, but added that the auditor himself cannot be part of the group.

As for having more opposition representation, Low said the current system was to follow the representation in Parliament.

“This is democracy… you have a majority. This is not my purview to decide. If the government of the day wants to have more opposition, then it’s up to them. If they want the chairman to be opposition, I’m fine with it. We go according to what is practiced here.”

So far, media reports on the 2012 Auditor-General’s report have revealed that:

• the police force had lost RM1.3 million worth of equipment including 156 handcuffs, 44 weapons and 29 vehicles were missing;

• the Health Ministry had used RM320,000 on Twitter and Facebook campaigns that did not take off;

• the Department of Broadcasting had purchased 20 wall clocks at RM3,810 each – 38 times more than the estimated RM100 each – and three A4-size scanners at RM14,670 a unit, more than 70 times the estimated price of RM200 per unit;

• the Customs Department had destroyed RM600,000 worth of shoes it purchased because they did not suit its officers;

• the Malacca government had illegally built its Customs and Immigration Quarantine Complex on private land, which eventually cost it an extra RM10.8 million to compensate the landowner, plus an extra RM40 million in building costs that ballooned due to a delay.

• the Youth and Sports Ministry spent RM3 million for the National Youth Day celebrations, including RM1.6million to bring in K-Pop groups from Korea.

• there had been an additional costs of RM1.3b over the US$2.3b Bakun Dam project and paying US$133m (RM430 million) in compensation to two foreign contractors for losses incurred which suffered delays of up to four years in civil engineering works.