Why no action against errant civil servants, Public Accounts Committee asks

Screwdriver sets that cost RM200, multi-million ringgit broadcast centres that are useless shells, research ships that can’t set sail and subsidised rice that do not go to the poor.

These are some of the horror stories in the annual Auditor-General’s reports the public sector watchdog, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), has probed into.

But the real horror is that there has been no proof that any action has been taken against those involved in these scandals, in fact all cases of public money being misspent, since 2004.

PAC chairman Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed said there had been no official reports from the government that the agencies responsible have taken steps to change their procedures to prevent these things from recurring.

This lack of official feedback from the civil service and the Cabinet fuels the widely held belief that the government was not serious about tackling corruption and wastage, said Nur Jazlan.

“There has been some unofficial feedback to us. But it was said vocally. We want it in black and white, with details. Otherwise, it’s just the same as saying there has been no action at all,” Nur Jazlan told The Malaysian Insider.

Aggressive investigator, toothless tiger

This revelation comes as PAC tabled its 14th report on major cases of public sector malfeasance in the Dewan Rakyat ever since this committee started its term in June 2013.

This PAC has been one of the most aggressive, with well-publicised probes into some of the worse cases of government spending. But despite its hard-hitting findings, the public has grown cynical about the PAC’s impact.

Some have labelled the committee a “toothless tiger” or worse, a public relations exercise to show that Putrajaya is serious about battling corruption when in reality, it just turns a deaf ear when it comes time to bringing culprits to book.In fact, said Nur Jazlan, the government by law, has to report back to the PAC on whether it has heeded its recommendations.

Under its standard operating procedure, the PAC tables its report on its probes in the Dewan Rakyat.

These reports come with recommendations for the government on what remedial actions to be taken to deal with a scandal.

For instance, in its November 2014 report of the XCNT incinerators which failed to operate properly, PAC recommended action

against the senior civil service officers responsible for the project.

It also wanted the ministry involved to hold open tenders for future incinerator projects so that the best technology at the best price can be chosen for Malaysia’s climate and geography.

Under Treasury Order 304 (B), the Ministry of Finance (MOF) is supposed to report back to the PAC on whether these recommendations were carried out.

To date, Nur Jazlan (pic) said PAC has not received one report from the MOF on remedial action it had taken.

When Nur Jazlan took over, his officers could not find any reports from the MOF on PAC probes that had been conducted since 2004.

He declined to speculate on why there haven’t been any, but said if the government was serious about tackling wastage and leakages, and wanted the public to know it, then the MOF had better start sending these reports.

“You can’t counter the allegation that government tolerates corruption and wastage if you don’t show us officially, what you did to act on these cases,” said Nur Jazlan.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Paul Low Seng Kuan said he would raise the PAC’s recommendations in the Cabinet and ensure that corrective action was taken.

He said that as the minister responsible for governance, integrity and human rights, he would enlarge his ministry’s scope to also function as an extension of the PAC in government, thus further improving its effectiveness.

"With this arrangement, the PAC recommendations will be monitored and acted upon where necessary by the government.

“This will further strengthen the governance process and shed any notion that the PAC is a toothless tiger,” Low told Bernama yesterday.

Mistakes and perceptions

Besides the XCNT incinerators, some of the biggest cases it has probed into include the new Sentul district police headquarters, klia2 (Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2), the Kota Kinabalu Airport upgrade and the Universiti Malaysia Terengganu RV Discovery research vessel.

Ongoing probes include the 1Bestari.net e-learning portal in schools, the 1Azam microcredit scheme and the subsidised rice scheme for the poor.

PAC would also start its probe soon into troubled government strategic investor 1Malaysia Development Berhad, Nur Jazlan said.

Despite the lack of feedback, Nur Jazlan said the number and the value of big cases have gone down over the past few years as civil servants know that someone was watching.

“You don’t get National Feedlot-level scandals any more,” he said referring to the 2006 project that failed to develop Malaysia’s cattle industry despite getting RM250 million in government loans.

“But the sloppiness is still there. Departments are able to keep with their ceiling costs for a project but they are still being built not according to specification.”

Case in point is RTM’s integrated broadcast centre which was supposed to cost RM200 million to build. When ready, it would house all the radio and television studios and operations under one roof.

“They built the building, but that was it. There are no lights, no equipment inside. So you can’t use it.

“They were supposed to spend RM200 million for the broadcast centre but they used it all just for the building.”

In the interview with TMI, Nur Jazlan kept referring to these cases as “negligence” and “wastage”, saying that if the government does not act on PAC recommendations, then these mistakes would keep recurring.

But could these cases all really be “mistakes”? Because if the government was serious about preventing more “mistakes”, then all it had to do was to follow all the PAC recommendations of the past 10 years.

Could it be that there have been no feedback reports from the MOF because there were no remedial steps taken to prevent more “mistakes”?

And why would the government not want to prevent these mistakes, unless, these were not “mistakes” in the first place?

“These are the perceptions that the government has to counter,” said Nur Jazlan. – April 11, 2015.