Guan Eng: Act on audit report or see repeat of abuses

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 27 — DAP has called for punishment to be meted out over abuses exposed in the 2010 Auditor-General report to ensure these are not repeated next year.


Secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said in his Deepavali message today that the report was a reminder “of everything that is wrong in the Barisan Nasional (BN) federal government.”
“The abuses of power, wrongdoings and financial malpractices exposed... will be certainly repeated next year unless action is taken against the departments, officials and even the ministers responsible,” the Penang chief minister said.

He cited cases such as RM56,350 being paid for night-vision marine binoculars that cost RM1,940, a LCD television and DVD player worth RM195 being bought for RM16,100,

RM770,000 spent to supply electricity to one house, and a RM73.6 million cattle-farming project linked to minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil that met only 40 per cent of breeding targets.
“The federal government has failed to stop the rot of wrongdoing, abuses of power and financial malpractices over the last 54 years. Only a change of government can bring about the transformation for good to win over bad,” the Bagan MP added.

The Auditor-General’s report is a financial audit of all government departments and has revealed irregularities in past years.

The audit for 2010 released on Monday revealed that nine federal ministries and departments overspent last year’s overall operational allocation by a total of RM3.73 billion.
Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has said it will probe seven ministries and agencies for weak financial management.
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hief Secretary to the government Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan also promised that the government will take action “according to the rules” on the report.

The opposition has claimed that the 2009 report proved that the government wastes RM28 billion annually.

But BN insisted the figure was wrongly reported as there is no specific mention in the report.