KUALA LUMPUR: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will call up seven ministries to explain issues arising in the Auditor-General’s Report 2018 Series 1 that was released today, said PAC chairman Datuk Dr Noraini Ahmad.
She said the PAC will call up the secretaries-general of the ministries on a date to be determined.
“I wish to advise all the secretaries-general to attend the PAC proceedings. Those who cannot attend on the given date due to work commitment should write in officially providing another date,” she told reporters after Auditor-General Datuk Nik Azman Nik Abdul Majid briefed the PAC at Parliament House.
Noraini named some of the issues as the programmes of the Socio-Economic Development of the Indian Community (SEDIC) Unit in the Prime Minister’s Department; Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) subsidies under the Finance Ministry and Royal Customs Department, and congestion in the Emergency and Trauma Department under the Health Ministry.
She said the PAC was informed that 19 government projects were audited, with six of them realised, one not realised, eight not fully realised and four unable to be gauged.
Noraini said the National Audit Department also detected five cases of leakage involving RM1.764 billion and six cases categorised as wastage involving RM26.47 million.
Asked about the PAC action on the outcome of the probe on arrears in the refund of Goods and Services Tax (GST) totalling RM19.4 billion, she pointed out that the PAC only provided conclusions and recommendations.
“We only make the recommendations. All the action is done by others, that does not come under the PAC,” she said.
The PAC, in a report tabled in the Dewan Rakyat today, said its investigation established that no money was missing in the collection of the GST.
The PAC launched its proceedings on Sept 12 last year following a statement by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng in the Dewan Rakyat a month earlier that the previous government “robbed” the RM19.4 billion in GST refunds. — Bernama
