Laws in the country do not provide for "carelessness and stupidity" to be charged as offences, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief Abu Kassim Mohamed said today.
"In developed countries, they have a public misconduct offence, where those who are careless, causing a loss of public money, can be charged.
"But, unfortunately, here, we can't charge someone with being careless. Nor can we charge someone with being stupid," Abu Kassim said when commenting on actions taken by MACC on the audit report findings.
Abu Kassim (seated on the left), who was speaking at a forum on the Audit Report 2012 at the Karangkraf headquarters today, also said MACC shouldn't be relied on to automatically take action on findings in the report.
"The department head must have the responsibility to investigate and rectify the matter even before the report is presented to Parliament, " he said, noting that department heads were aware of departments being audited even before the report is completed.
“Do not leave it to MACC to solve the problem. We are the party on the outside,” he added.
'Improve procurement procedures'
Abu Kassim also said that the government must improve its procedures when it comes to procurements so that government departments do not buy intems at prices way above the market price, as highlighted in the Audit Report.
“Our procedure is that, when we buy something in bulk, we open it to a tender process, and we give the tender to the lowest bidder. But when you look at some of the items, then you realise that we bought them at prices way above the market price,” he said.
“We are angry, too (about this situation). The department heads must see the department as though it is his or her own company. They can’t take a lackadaisical attitude and say oh, it’s just the government's money,” he added further.
Auditor-general Ambrin Buang also concurred on this point.
“If there are items being sold above market price, use your intelligence and experience. Take out the item (from the tender list) and do direct purchase instead. It’s perfectly within procedures to do so,” he said.
Abu Kassim noted that after going through the audit report, MACC has identified 15 possible cases where corruption might have taken place among the cases that the report has highlighted.
Both Abu Kassim and Ambrin were speaking at a two-hour forum titled ‘Audit Report: Wastage or Oversight’ today.
Others in the panel include Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairperson Nur Jazlan Mohamed and DAP publicity chief Tony Pua.
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