On stopping the leakage

We are currently being barraged by news on how the Auditor-General's report has once again shown just how much money is leaking from the government’s coffers. Well, not just money. There is money, and then there is non-halal bak kut teh.

For some reason, the latter has nothing to do with the Auditor-General's duties; so I'm wondering how it somehow made the final copy of the report.

Meanwhile, we are reading now about how 1BestariNet is underutilised; how a former civil servant who embezzled RM1 million is still out there, free as a bird; and, also how those serving in our hospitals have stolen RM1.5 million worth of medicine and medical equipment.

But, on top of that, there is even news on how our dead veterans are still being paid, in this year's report amounting to RM12 million. This issue is actually a prolonged one. We have even heard of how funds to be disbursed to the next of kin are still pending in both the Employee Provident Fund (EPF) and even Amanah Saham Bumiputera (ASB).

Lawmakers should be discussing just how to solve these issues, and I foresee that these will become amplified ammunition for the very loud but seldom fact building opposition who somehow thinks RM4.3 billion in 34 years is somehow rewarding for a company (that's an average of only RM146 million a year, which is tiny for a property developer).

The truth is, this issue has been highlighted time and time again to the point that I am just wondering what exactly is the procedure upon someone's death in terms of the banking and other related sectors.

Do you bring the death certificate to a bank to close the account, or does the bank receive a copy from a federal agency to start seeking out the next of kin?

Is there a group of lawyers somewhere in a government agency tasked to contact the banks as well as the next of kin to inform them of their loss?

And finally, how is it the Auditor-General can tell that these former soldiers were deceased while whoever was doling out the money could not?

As an IT graduate, do these agencies not share the same database? It does not make any sense.

There must be a mechanism somewhere in the government to stop these leakages rather than to depend on human and corporate morality.

In the case of the hospitals losing RM1.5 million worth of medicine and medical equipment, will there be an investigation?

In the case of the civil servant's embezzlement, why has no action been taken by the police who could so quickly arrest students in Sabah and put them through a urine test to see if they were high?

Perhaps the most pointed question we can ask the current inspector-general of police, the attorney-general as well as the home minister: “What are your priorities in solving and prosecuting crime?”

In the case of 1BestariNet, we know that this was a YTL project. And it failed to achieve its goal. For one thing, we now read in the auditor-general's report that it does not even cover the entire school. These are towers giving out 4G service built on school grounds, so why does it fail to even service its own objective?

Secondly, at the rate it is being used, it is safe to say that it has become a white elephant project. So the main question now is, why continue with it? Would the Ministry of Education not be better served by just scrapping the project and collecting money from renting out the land for the towers and charging double for the electricity being used?

The whole plan of wanting to promote online education cannot be done using YES4G because the service is both pricey and at the same time, limited. The amount of data available on the quota is too small.

When you talk about using the Internet for education in schools, you are supposed to cater to a crowd of some 1,000 to 3,000 people in a single location. There is no way any data plan available commercially can cope, let alone one from a supposed 4G supplier that is not even supplying 4G services.

And this is RM663 million gone to waste, 8,885 schools with towers wasted, and more funds being wasted by the Ministry of Education to try and salvage the project through "hand holding" sessions with the teachers and students.

The issue on leakage will continue to go on because we refuse to acknowledge that the projects while implemented were already down a path of digression, especially when some of those wanting to use the service have seen delays of even 439 days with no penalties.

This government needs to learn how to cancel contracts which do not favour it and the Malaysian people, to avoid such leakage. In addition, it needs to learn from each year's Auditor-General report and take swift action against the wrongdoers involved. Doctors and pharmacists who steal medicine and equipment should lose their licenses.

Civil servants who embezzle funds or are found corrupt should face harsher penalties than the norm.

And companies with CEO's who say they're not cronies yet make hundreds of millions from faulty projects should be held accountable for their contracts and also be blacklisted.

The issue with Malaysia in dealing with leakages is that we have cultivated a very lackadaisical, "tak apa" attitude that would drive the rest of the world insane. This is the very basis of what is limiting us to becoming a better nation.

So unless this government decides to actually go all out on a "zero tolerance" policy against any form of leakage, we will be stuck in the mud, and probably be eating it too if the predictions of a financial crisis actually happen in 2016. – November 11, 2014.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.