A loss of public funds and wastage amounting to RM620.07 million in 2020 is the result of non-compliance of federal ministries and departments in terms of financial management, says Auditor-General Nik Azman Nik Abdul Majid.
He said of the RM510.49 million in irregular payments, RM499.19 million involved payments for maintenance service claims without verification at the National Security Council level. RM81.69 million out of RM104.79 million loss in public funds involved unclaimed penalties not imposed by the immigration department while RM4.79 million involved equipment that was received late and not installed at Istana Budaya.
Compliance audits involving a total of RM899.44 million had been carried out on three ministries and five federal departments, covering aspects of contract management (RM772.40 million), government procurement (RM54.8 million) and revenue collection (RM72.24 million).
“To enable corrective action and improvements to be taken, the auditor-general has submitted 29 recommendations, namely four recommendations for verification of financial statements and 25 recommendations for compliance audits of federal ministries and departments to be considered for implementation by ministries and departments,” he says in a statement published by Bernama.
The Auditor-General’s Report on the federal government’s financial statements and the 2020 Federal Ministries and Departments Compliance Audit were tabled at the Dewan Rakyat today.
Federal government revenue declined 14.9% to RM225.075 billion in 2020 from RM264.415 billion the previous year while Covid-19 expenditure amounted to RM38.019 billion.
Overall, the federal government had a deficit of RM87.645 billion with a deficit-to-GDP ratio of 6.2%, compared to 3.4% or RM51.37 billion in 2019.
Operating expenditure declined 14.7% to RM224.6 billion, a decrease of RM38.743 billion compared to 2019. Development expenditure amounted to RM51.36 billion or a decrease of RM2.813 billion (5.2%) compared to RM54.173 billion in 2019.
Federal government’s debt in 2020 amounted to RM879.560 billion or 62.1% of gross domestic product (GDP), an RM86.562 billion or 10.9% increase compared to RM792.998 billion or 52.4% in 2019.
A total of RM2.65 billion was used to pay for the health ministry’s hospital and clinic support as well as the maintenance of facilities in the education ministry which was previously paid for using operating expenditure allocations.
