Financial woes for Examinations Syndicate?

PETALING JAYA: The Education Ministry yesterday confirmed that the announcement of the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) 2016 results has been postponed to March 16.
The ministry, in a statement, said this is to ensure that the results given are accurate and authentic and would be fair to the candidates.
“The ministry always ensures that every process to announce all SPM results are in accordance with the standard operating procedure.
“And because of that, it is confirmed that the date of SPM results announcement will be on March 16, 2017,” the statement said.
The announcement came amidst a circular on social media, purportedly from the Examinations Syndicate, saying that the 2016 SPM results will be released on March 16 instead of March 2 as originally planned.
The circular had gone viral as the reason cited for the postponement was the lack of funds to repair the optical mark reader (OMR) processing machine which is used to tabulate the results.
The alleged circular carried the signature of its director Datin Nawal Salleh.
"Due to our financial constraints, the Examination Syndicate is having difficulties in replacing the old machine.
“The time needed to repair the machine has caused delays in processing the SPM results data,” Nawal said in the statement.
A total 434,535 candidates registered to sit for the 2016 SPM examination which was held from Nov 7 till Dec 6.