27. The untouchables

The annual Auditor's General Reports are largely useless and only serve to mislead the consumers and taxpayers into complacency and falsehood that something is done to put right what had gone wrong the past years.  This had become a culture of massive corruption never put right when maladministration of the finance of the nation go scot free from any further action. How many hundred of billions Ringgit had gone down the drains or private pockets for decades?  You may ask why.

There are reasons for NFA.

1.  The Auditor General can only do so much annually whilst the bulk of public expenditure go unaudited as lots of money is parked in the untouchable ministries.  If you examine the annual Budgets (State and Federal), the major portions are under the untouchable ministries.  So there go the wasted fund and never be accounted for. So many NGOs do unfortunately want to play up on the AG's reports annually, when the AG's report only scratch on the minor portions of the annual portion.

2.  It is not easy to audit the untouchable ministries like the Finance Ministries and Prime Minister's Department both positions likely under the same persons - all untouchable.  If the auditors touch these ministries, there are much risk involved.

I am writing based on my experience with the Federal Audit Department in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  I did detected a misappropriation of funds of RM5m but the final answer was the socalled untouchable VIPs could find scapegoats in some junior clerk going to jail rather the VIPs going to jail.  For me as an auditor, I had to face the blacklisting by the powerful people - who are actually CRIMINALS in Government.  So this tradition of untouchable of the CRIMINALS in Government has been for decades, and how can we expect any easy solution especially when most money from GST would go unaccounted for.  

We can remain indifferent and ultimately everyone suffer now and more so in years to come...