Kuala Lumpur: A civil servant was charged in court while 25 others were subject to disciplinary action following 12 issues reported in the Auditor-General’s Report, says legal and institutional reform deputy minister Ramkarpal Singh.
The action was taken after investigations into 12 issues were completed, which accounts for half of the 24 raised in the seven reports involving audits at federal and state levels in 2020 and 2021.
He said the 12 resolved issues involved two investigated by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) while the other 10 involved investigations by a special investigation committee and an internal investigation committee coordinated by the public services department.
“Twelve more issues that are still under investigation involve five by MACC, six by police and one by the Malaysian Competition Commission.
“All 24 issues cover various ministries, agencies and departments at the federal and state levels which are categorised as punitive issues.
“These issues involve matters such as leakage, loss of public funds, and serious wastage, including weaknesses in contract management, acquisition, project programmes, and zakat money, in addition to non-compliance with regulations,” he said during the question-and-answer session in the Dewan Rakyat.
Ramkarpal said this in response to a question by Wong Kah Woh (PH-Taiping), who wanted to know the actions taken by the government to address the issues raised in the A-G’s Reports for 2020 and 2021 on leakages.
The Bukit Gelugor MP said some of the recommendations and proposed actions stated in the reports had also been taken into consideration by relevant agencies.
“For example, in 2021, the A-G reported less customs duty collection for the period 2015 to 2021 due to non-compliance with the status of residency requirement for vehicle ownership. Now, the customs department has improved its SOPs related to assessing the status of residency.
“Furthermore, the road transport department (JPJ) in the 2021 A-G’s penalty report stated that RM149,178 of controlled document printing services were not collected for the 2019-2020 period.
“Based on the A-G’s recommendations, JPJ has collected RM72,667 of that amount, in addition to having stricter enforcement covering agreements and related terms,” he said.
