Anwar promised there will be no cover-up, says A-G

PUTRAJAYA: The Prime Minister has given his assurance not to stop or hide any audit findings, says Auditor-General Datuk Seri Nik Azman Nik Abdul Majid.

He said a meeting with Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was held on Jan 17 to brief him on discoveries and matters raised in Series 2 of the Auditor-General’s Report 2021.

“The Prime Minister has stated that he will not hide any audit discoveries.

“He also informed us that he will get the ministers to check matters raised in the report involving their respective ministries,” he told reporters.

The Auditor-General’s Report 2021 Series 2 was tabled in Parliament yesterday.

Nik Azman also said his department was encouraged by the Prime Minister’s order to his ministers to give the Auditor-General’s Report serious thought.

“This is a strong and clear message by the Prime Minister and is encouraging to us as auditors.

“We are proud that he has mentioned it,” he added.

On Jan 18, Anwar directed his Cabinet ministers to give serious attention to issues related to their ministries, as highlighted in the Auditor-General’s Report 2021.

The Prime Minister stated that the focus should be on expenditure, leakages and failure to comply with regulations, and that these issues should be taken seriously so that mistakes are not repeated.Nik Azman also said there were still 689 problems that had been brought up in previous Auditor-General’s reports but had not been fixed.

These problems were marked as “in action”.

Among the yet-to-be-resolved issues were compensation for the Penang Second Bridge and another pertaining to compensation involving klia2.

Nik Azman said no deadline had been given for issues to be settled, as auditors were aware that some cases were complicated and involved many parties.

“For example, issues that have not been resolved by a ministry may depend on action by another ministry to enable it to clear the matter,” he said.

He said some issues could not be fixed quickly due to the restructuring of ministries.

“When there is a Cabinet reshuffle, some components of a ministry are transferred to another ministry.

“This is another reason why there are delays,” he added.

Between 2011 and 2021, the Auditor-General’s Report highlighted a total of 10,910 issues at the federal and state levels.

Of the total, 10,221 issues, or 93.7%, had been resolved, leaving 689 cases unsettled.