PETALING JAYA: The financial management of the government improved significantly last year compared with 2017, according to the latest Auditor-General’s report.
Sixteen ministries ended the year with top marks for how they managed their finances, compared with 12 ministries in the previous year.
The performance of the remaining eight ministries was graded as “good”.
Nonetheless there were some bad apples too, and these would be hauled in for questioning by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), according to its chairman Datuk Noraini Ahmad.
In his report, Auditor-General Datuk Nik Azman Nik Abdul Majid said a total of 193 government entities, comprising ministries, departments and agencies at the state level were also audited.
Of the total, performance for 83 entities was considered excellent. For the remaining 110, 69 were considered good and 26 were satisfactory. However, 13 entities were less than satisfactory and with the remaining two as unsatisfactory.
The Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry led the pack with the best performance for the year, scoring 97.1% compared with 96.15% the year before.
The Home Ministry came in second with 94.84% edging the Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Ministry in third place with 94.43%.
Rounding off the top five are the Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry and Human Resource Ministry.
Noraini said among the discrepancies were leakages in government funding, wastage, improper payments and other involving the Finance Ministry.
“We have identified a few issues involving government departments and the PAC will call them (for questioning),“ she told a press conference at Parliament today.
Noraini said the Auditor-General’s Report revealed that there were five cases of leakages involving RM1.764 billion, seven cases of improper payments amounting to RM38.73 million and six cases of wastage of RM26.47 million.
