Mindef's online monitoring system gains international attention

India, Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago are among the countries which have shown keen interest in the Accountability Index Monitoring System (AIMS) of Malaysia's Ministry of Defence (Mindef), says its Under Secretary for Internal Audit and General Investigation, Johari Ismail.

The system is very attractive as it is easily implemented, he said after winning the "Innovation in Public Service" competition at the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management three-day meeting here from Oct 24.

"Trinidad & Tobago as well as India and Nigeria have shown keen interest in the system and requested a presentation from us," he added.

The system is also cost effective as the AIMS, enables organisations to audit financial management of their offices via online.

"With a huge number of offices, departments and 28 defense attachés around the world, it is a difficult task for us to be physically present at each and every one to do the audit. We don’t have enough people and it is also costly," Johari said.

To deal with this reality, Mindef’s information technology department established the system in 2008 and it was implemented in 2009, after substantial testing and trials.

According to Johari, there was zero cost in building the system, in that, it is a totally indigenous product.

"We are also using Mindef's existing servers and the software is open sourced, meaning, there is no issue of licensing.

"We are now able to audit all the offices annually and the cost saving is about RM400,000 as it doesn’t involve travelling to each and every one," he said.

He said the auditing is done by way of sending a set of questionnaire, which need to be answered within a week, following which a ranking of between one to four stars as the highest, is generated.

Asked if this encourages cheating and manipulation, he said: "We have our previous records, and will cross check. If earlier you got two stars, you can't immediately rank yourself a four star.

"Besides, there are random spot checks and visits as well." Johari said a few ministries as well as state governments in Malaysia are already using the AIMS.