Time for parliamentary select committees to scrutinise the government
My article was earlier published in TheAntDaily.com on 21/4/2014
When the Auditor-General’s (AG) Report was released recently, it again exposed how government ministries, departments, agencies as well as government-linked companies (GLCs) embarked on many kinds of multi-million ringgit projects and procurements that resulted in wastage of public funds.
In most cases, there were no clues as to where the money ended up.
It has become a yearly affair and efforts by the AG to curb all this mismanagement within the government have been in vain. What went wrong actually? The AG’s report has been tabled in Parliament and debated by the MPs every year, and yet nobody could decide how these financial fiascos should be stopped once and for all.
The general public has many critical questions for the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the Public Service Department (PSD), and also on the role of Parliament in ensuring that the day-to-day affairs of the government are properly run to serve public interests.
What is the PAC doing to address such mismanagement of public funds? What is the PSD doing in ensuring that its civil servants are professional in handling the public funds, and serving with integrity and honesty? Is Parliament doing enough in pushing through laws and bills that will ensure the management of the government is competent, transparent and accountable to the public?
As far as we know, the PAC has not been able to cope with the task of getting all those ministers, heads of department, CEOs of agencies and GLCs to answer for the various reports of mismanagement in the government. We also note that the PAC usually summons lower level heads to answer questions on the reported mismanagement in their respective ministries, departments, agencies and GLCs. Why are the top people not summoned? Why are the ministers, ministry secretaries-general, directors-general and CEOs not called to answer for the debacles which have cost the government billions of ringgit in losses?
Until today, the PAC has not been able to scrutinize every single ministry, department, agency and GLC over the various mismanagement and losses in order to seek the truth behind the obscene wastage of public funds.
The PAC can only recommend appropriate actions to be taken against those who are involved but its effectiveness is always in question. Until today, we have not seen any of the big fish being hauled to court and severely punished for all the wrongdoings.
The fact is that mismanagement in the government, be it corruption or power abuse, has become routine. It has become a much “celebrated anniversary” when the AG’s report is released.
As such, it is time to have permanent parliamentary select committees (PSCs) to oversee all the ministries and their subordinates -- the departments, agencies and GLCs. These PSCs should be established based on the current ministries’ portfolios, be empowered to summon and scrutinise officials right from the top to check on the expenditures, procurements and projects undertaken, to recommend necessary actions against any wrongdoings, follow-up actions, and to carry out parliamentary audits as required.
Putting such portfolio-based PSCs in place by involving MPs from both sides of the political divide is not new. Look at the various Congressional and Senate committees in the US which oversee a wide range of portfolios of the government like defence, homeland security, health, social security and housing. The same goes for parliaments in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and even the Philippines. They have various legislative committees to oversee the activities of their governments. These are the checks and balances.
In our Parliament, only opposition MPs were actively addressing the issues of governance, scrutinising and questioning the state of affairs while MPs from the BN side were fond of talking about sex, religion, race and worst of all, degrading our women MPs. So without the active scrutiny of the government from the BN side, will efforts to curb mismanagement in the administration be effective?
It was a surprise to see some BN MPs standing up recently to question the mismanagement of public funds in ministries, departments, agencies and GLCs. Why only now, after so many years of budget deficits, losses amounting to billions of ringgit? Is it because they had realised that our people are watching them?
When people got fed up and decided not to pay their annual income tax as a show of protest, BN MPs labelled them as traitors. What about all those who abused the public trust by committing corruption and power abuse? Why are you not labelling them as traitors too and seeking the removal of their citizenship? It shows these BN MPs are biased and not fully committed to their work.
That is why we need these portfolio-based PSCs to be in place to rope in all MPs to be involved as much as possible in running this nation as well as to put things in order.
When the Auditor-General’s (AG) Report was released recently, it again exposed how government ministries, departments, agencies as well as government-linked companies (GLCs) embarked on many kinds of multi-million ringgit projects and procurements that resulted in wastage of public funds.
In most cases, there were no clues as to where the money ended up.
It has become a yearly affair and efforts by the AG to curb all this mismanagement within the government have been in vain. What went wrong actually? The AG’s report has been tabled in Parliament and debated by the MPs every year, and yet nobody could decide how these financial fiascos should be stopped once and for all.
The general public has many critical questions for the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the Public Service Department (PSD), and also on the role of Parliament in ensuring that the day-to-day affairs of the government are properly run to serve public interests.
What is the PAC doing to address such mismanagement of public funds? What is the PSD doing in ensuring that its civil servants are professional in handling the public funds, and serving with integrity and honesty? Is Parliament doing enough in pushing through laws and bills that will ensure the management of the government is competent, transparent and accountable to the public?
As far as we know, the PAC has not been able to cope with the task of getting all those ministers, heads of department, CEOs of agencies and GLCs to answer for the various reports of mismanagement in the government. We also note that the PAC usually summons lower level heads to answer questions on the reported mismanagement in their respective ministries, departments, agencies and GLCs. Why are the top people not summoned? Why are the ministers, ministry secretaries-general, directors-general and CEOs not called to answer for the debacles which have cost the government billions of ringgit in losses?
Until today, the PAC has not been able to scrutinize every single ministry, department, agency and GLC over the various mismanagement and losses in order to seek the truth behind the obscene wastage of public funds.
The PAC can only recommend appropriate actions to be taken against those who are involved but its effectiveness is always in question. Until today, we have not seen any of the big fish being hauled to court and severely punished for all the wrongdoings.
The fact is that mismanagement in the government, be it corruption or power abuse, has become routine. It has become a much “celebrated anniversary” when the AG’s report is released.
As such, it is time to have permanent parliamentary select committees (PSCs) to oversee all the ministries and their subordinates -- the departments, agencies and GLCs. These PSCs should be established based on the current ministries’ portfolios, be empowered to summon and scrutinise officials right from the top to check on the expenditures, procurements and projects undertaken, to recommend necessary actions against any wrongdoings, follow-up actions, and to carry out parliamentary audits as required.
Putting such portfolio-based PSCs in place by involving MPs from both sides of the political divide is not new. Look at the various Congressional and Senate committees in the US which oversee a wide range of portfolios of the government like defence, homeland security, health, social security and housing. The same goes for parliaments in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and even the Philippines. They have various legislative committees to oversee the activities of their governments. These are the checks and balances.
In our Parliament, only opposition MPs were actively addressing the issues of governance, scrutinising and questioning the state of affairs while MPs from the BN side were fond of talking about sex, religion, race and worst of all, degrading our women MPs. So without the active scrutiny of the government from the BN side, will efforts to curb mismanagement in the administration be effective?
It was a surprise to see some BN MPs standing up recently to question the mismanagement of public funds in ministries, departments, agencies and GLCs. Why only now, after so many years of budget deficits, losses amounting to billions of ringgit? Is it because they had realised that our people are watching them?
When people got fed up and decided not to pay their annual income tax as a show of protest, BN MPs labelled them as traitors. What about all those who abused the public trust by committing corruption and power abuse? Why are you not labelling them as traitors too and seeking the removal of their citizenship? It shows these BN MPs are biased and not fully committed to their work.
That is why we need these portfolio-based PSCs to be in place to rope in all MPs to be involved as much as possible in running this nation as well as to put things in order.
