How Is Our Government Spending Taxpayer Money? Highlights From The Latest AG-Report 2013

The Fabulous Food 1Malaysia (FF1M) event organised by the Tourism and Culture Ministry was found to be not in line with the 1Malaysia concept and may touch the sensitivities of the country's multi-racial community.

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The 3rd series of the 2013 Auditor-General's Report revealed that the event introduced in 2000 was not balanced in terms of racial participation, with certain races dominating the event and menu did not represent local fare.

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The report tabled in Dewan Rakyat mentioned that a variety of food was sold including exotic and non-halal items, and stalls selling such food was not separated but was instead set next to stalls offering halal food. "Malaysia is made up of different ethnicities and religions and the main purpose of this event is to attract visitors from all walks of life. "The contents of this event must be mindful of religious sensitivities, ethnicities which represent Malaysian culture as well as respect all religions in order to ensure harmony," the report said.

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The RM663 million 1BestariNet project is suffering from a lack of usage, with less than 5% of students using the facility which was installed in schools nationwide, the 2013 Auditor-General (AG) Report found. It also pointed out that the annual site rental for the 1BestariNet Receiver Integrated System (1BRIS) at RM1,000 is "unreasonable".

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The A-G said 89.1% of the 46 schools surveyed and 70.3% of the 491 feedback received by the schools found that 1BestariNet coverage does not encompass the entire schools' compound. The report also noted that usage of the VLE by teachers, students and parents was "very low", at between 0.01% and 4.69%. Daily utilisation of the VLE by students was found to be between 0.17% and 0.63%, while teachers were from 0.57% to 4.69% and parents were the lowest, at between 0.01% and 0.03%.

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In revealing a litany of shortcomings in the project which was awarded to YTL Communications Sdn Bhd to provide the infrastructure to 10,000 schools nationwide within 30 months from December 13, 2011, the A-G report noted that Internet connection to 4,176 users were delayed by between 12 and 439 days, with no time extension or fines levied.

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The government paid close to RM12 million in pensions from 2011 to 2013 to veterans who had already died, only RM1.69 million was collected back from the bank, a national audit has found.

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The Auditor-General’s 2013 report (Series 3) released today said according to the National Registration Department (NRD), 5.7 per cent out of a sample of 768 active veterans or recipients of retirement benefits had died. The report noted that the failure of the Veterans Affairs Department under the Defence Ministry to update the status of veterans had also resulted in 2,058 unclaimed pension payments amounting to RM7.78 million.

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In the report, the A-G recommended “strict action should be taken against [the] officer who makes errors (mistake/carelessness/negligence) resulting in overpaid pension, incomplete data which disrupts the smooth process of pension payments, improper payment and delay in detecting the status of veterans/recipients of retirement benefits.”

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The Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry (MOSTI) recorded an unsatisfactory performance in its overall expenses for research and development between 2011 and 2013, a federal audit showed, noting that the ministry only spent 56.1 per cent of its RM355.95 million allocation.

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The Auditor-General’s 2013 (Series 3) report released today revealed that this was partly due to the provision allocated by MOSTI to the Project Monitoring Agency, which had only spent 30 per cent or RM53.09 million of the RM174.98 million allocated.

The audit noted, however, that the overall physical performance of projects under the ministry’s R&D programme were satisfactory. “There were 81 (62.3%) out of 130 projects which were completed as per schedule,” the report said. “The progress of ongoing projects was also satisfactory where 927 (91.1%) out of 1,018 projects were according to schedule as at 31 December 2013.”

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The AG’s report noted that the surplus from the Science Fund allocation amounting to RM830,000, which was not used in three out of four Research Management Centres (RMC) visited, was not returned to the government, as of December 31, 2013, as stated in the contract.

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Singapore-registered vehicles top the list of foreign vehicles that have unsettled summonses, as revealed by the third series of the Auditor-General's Report 2013. The report said 16.3 million summonses were issued by traffic police from 2011 to 2013, with 121,664 issued to foreigners. "Singaporeans top the total number of summonses with 84,604, followed by Brunei with 25,803," the report said, adding that only 12,713 summonses had been settled, with RM7.63mil left unpaid.

The report also stated that Malaysians had settled 6.7 million summonses amounting to RM1.244bil from 2011 to 2013.

From the total, stocks of medicine worth RM1.21mil was stolen from Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL) and a further RM240,000 from Hospital Pulau Pinang.

It also revealed that there were recurring losses of four types of assets, namely air conditioning compressors, syringe pumps, physiologic monitoring systems, and pulse oxymeters worth RM610,000. Apart from that, 970 assets amounting to RM7.95mil were categorised as Asset Not Found (V4L), while poor asset control in the disposal store led to further losses of RM240,000.

Security measures at the hospitals were found wanting as 52 out of 253 CCTV cameras were not functioning. The audit also highlighted delays in resolving cases of loss and write-offs ranging from two to 833 days at the hospital and Ministry level.

The Health Ministry has been advised to be more careful when selecting contractors for future projects to avoid a repeat of ballooning costs as experienced during construction of the Shah Alam Hospital (SAH).

The third series of the 2013 Auditor-General's Report pointed out that the cost for the SAH project increased by RM68.25mil after the contract for the project was transferred from Sunshine Fleet Sdn Bhd (SFSB) to Gadang Engineering (M) Sdn Bhd in 2011. SFSB was appointed through direct negotiation in 2007, but failed to carry out construction of the hospital, which was expected to have a capacity of 300 beds.

"The project cost of SAH increased by 14.1% after taking into account the new contract price worth RM410.87mil and payment of RM139.98mil to SFSB before its termination, including advance payment amounting to RM9.58mil. "In relation to this, the Government suffered a loss of RM68.53mil and claimed the loss from SFSB," stated the report, which was released on Monday. The audit also pointed out that medical equipment worth RM20.7mil for the hospital were not tested nor commissioned as the SAH building was not completed yet.

As many as 23 out of the 24 Federal Ministries were rated ‘excellent’ in 2013 compared to 22 ministries in 2012 and 19 in 2011. The number of ministries achieving the ‘excellent’ rating also more than doubled when compared to 2009, when only 10 ministries held the rating.

However, the same could not be said in regards to the financial performance of Federal Departments, with only 21 out of the 45 departments obtaining an ‘excellent’ rating. This was a drop in terms of percentage from the previous year, when 21 out of 39 departments were rated ‘excellent’.