LKAN: One civil servant charged in court, 25 face disciplinary actions

KUALA LUMPUR - A civil servant was charged in court while 25 others were subject to disciplinary actions following 12 issues reported in the Auditor General's Report (LKAN), said Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Legal and Institutional Reform) Ramkarpal Singh.

The action was taken after investigations on the 12 issues were completed so far, which is half of the total 24 issues raised in the seven LKAN involving audits at federal and state levels throughout 2020 to 2021.

He said the 12 issues that had been resolved involved two investigated by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) while the other 10 involved investigations by a special investigation committee and an internal investigation committee coordinated by the Public Service Department.

"A total of 12 more issues that are still under investigation involve five by MACC, six by police and one by the Malaysian Competition Commission.

"All these 24 issues cover various ministries, agencies and departments at federal and state levels which are categorised as punitive issues, involving issues of leakage, loss of public money and serious wastage including weaknesses in contract management; acquisition; project programmes and zakat money apart from non-compliance to regulations," he said during the question and answer session in Dewan Rakyat today.

Ramkarpal said this in response to a question by Wong Kah Woh (PH-Taiping) who wanted to know the actions taken by the government to deal with the issues raised in LKAN 2020 and 2021 on leakages.

He said some of the recommendations and proposed actions stated in the LKAN have also been taken into consideration by relevant agencies.

"For example, in 2021, LKAN reported less customs duty collection for the period 2015 to 2021 due to non-compliance with the status of residency requirement for vehicle ownership and now the Royal Malaysian Customs Department has improved the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) related to assessing the status of residency.

"Furthermore, JPJ (Road Transport Department) in the LKAN 2021 penalty report stated that RM149,178 of controlled document printing services were not collected for the 2019-2020 period and based on LKAN's recommendations, JPJ has collected back RM72,667 of that amount in addition to stricter enforcement covering agreements and related terms," he said. - BERNAMA