PUTRAJAYA, July 14 (NNN-BERNAMA) — Action has been taken against 1,000 officers for various offences, mistakes that were exposed in the Auditor-General’s Report for the years 2012 to 2018..
Auditor-General Datuk Nik Azman Nik Abdul Majid said of the total, 255 of the officers were penalised, 604 officers freed while proceedings were still ongoing against the remaining 141 officers.
On the punishment taken, he said, they included warning (141), suspension of salary movement (26), fine (11), salary cut (10), fine and warning (nine), surcharge and warning (nine), salary cut and warning (seven), termination (3) and demotion (one).
Apart from that, he said 29 officers were imposed surcharge, two were sentenced by the court while another two were fined and surcharged. One officer also had a salary cut and fine while another was demoted.
“Sometimes we feel that the punishment imposed by a department (against the officers) is soft, but the Audit Department cannot intervene because we only do the audit and point out the non-compliance,” he said at a media conference on the Auditor-General’s Report 2018 Series 3 here today.
Nik Azman said the National Audit Department (JAN) respected the decision taken by the committee at the respective departments that conducted the investigation, whereby they may also take into account other factors in making the assessment.
“JAN may see the punishment as light, but the department may take certain factors or other mitigating factors for reducing the sentence,” he added.
He said whenever the department conducts an audit, a follow-up audit would be conducted to find out more the cause or reason for anything to happen.
“For example, if there is excess payment, we will do an in-depth follow-up audit and will check on it, why it happened and who is responsible and who gave the approval,” he added.
He said JAN would then meet up with the Royal Malaysia Police, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and the Public Service Department to set up an internal inquiry committee to establish whether a mistake has been made, or there had been an abuse of power or negligence before taking the appropriate action.
Every action or process taken will be recorded and uploaded on the Auditor-General’s Dashboard, he added.
— NNN-BERNAMA