Wastage by public servants: UMNO veterans agree to legal move to tackle problem

The UMNO Veterans Club supports the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission's (MACC) proposal for a new law be formulated to bring to book public servants who wasted government funds.

Its secretary, Datuk Mustapha Yaakub said the proposal should be welcomed by all quarters who wished to see that all government machinery carry out their tasks with full responsibility, honesty and care.

"The people and tax payers have been long waiting for stern and effective action taken against civil servants for indiscriminate spending of government funds, resulting in wastage running into millions of ringgit.

"Criticism after criticism from the Auditor-General have been ignored by those responsible. Therefore, only the law can drag them to court for this to be a deterrent for others," he said in a statement, here, today.

Yesterday, MACC chief commissioner Tan Sri Abu Kassim Mohamed said the scope of Section 23 of the MACC Act was rather small, thus a new law was needed so that the commission could charge individuals who ignored public interests to the extent of causing millions of ringgit in public funds wasted.

Mustapha also said that it was high time for the government to be more prudent in spending, especially when holding celebrations to avoid "wastage within wastage".

He cited such events as the festival open house and other big functions organised by the government, ministries and departments where tens of thousands of ringgit were wasted on unfinished food that were then thrown away, besides paying for the venues and preparations, and the guest artistes.

He said the UMNO Veterans therefore hoped that the new law would have a wider scope to cover such wastage of public funds.