Ali Hamsa: Secretaries-general must be aware of ministry expenditure
PUTRAJAYA: As chief financial controllers, secretaries-general should be aware of all ministry expenditure, says Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Dr Ali Hamsa (pic).
Commenting on the Youth and Sports Ministry RM100mil embezzlement case, Dr Ali said the situation where an officer could approve funds without authorisation from the secretary-general should not arise.
"Basically the secretary-general is the chief financial controller. That means they are in charge of all the money at the ministry, be it capital or operating expenditure. By right, he should know where the money goes to," he said.
"Payment for projects are done by officers at the finance division or development division.
"That's why I want to see whether they (the suspects) actually went back to their financial controllers," said Dr Ali at a press conference here.
Dr Ali, however, said the secretaries-general implicated in this case should not be judged too quickly before investigations are completed.
"Should all the secretaries-general be questioned? It all depends if they were misled or not. We have to wait and see," he said.
Earlier, Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the suspect, a division secretary, had exploited a loophole that allowed him to approve funding without his or the secretary-general's authorisation.
Dr Ali also said the Auditor-General's Department will conduct an audit on the ministry and the agencies under its purview.
This was in response to Khairy's request that an independent taskforce be set up to review procurement procedures in the ministry.
"The audit process will look into the financial and procurement processes and also to identify its weaknesses. This is like forensic auditing.
"I have spoken to (Auditor-General) Tan Sri Ambrin Buang about this. When completed, the outcome of the audit will be presented to the Government so improvements can be done.
"It is understood that the case had occurred since 2010. Which means there have been several secretary-generals and even more than one Chief Secretary to the Government between that period. That is why we need to look into the processes and find out how this could be overlooked," he said.
Dr Ali said Government officers in "sensitive posts" should not remain in the same position for more than five years as they could get "too comfortable".
"In fact, a circular on this have been issued for a while already. Sensitive posts are those where the officer deals directly with customers in enforcing laws or processing applications, where they are in the position to be rewarded," he explained.
