INDEPENDENT AUDITORS IS A STEP TOWARDS TRANSPARENCY

Auditors must be independent, have good credentials, possess proven track record, apolitical and
multinational company, to name a few. Even though there are cases of negligence and poor judgement made by multinational auditing firms like the case of Arthur Anderson with Enron, nevertheless they are less prone to grafts, frauds, political pressures, threat of withdrawal of their licence and the like.

Probe other failed ventures
sun2surf

COMMISSIONING independent auditors to shed light on questionable expenditure in
government departments and government-linked agencies seems to be the fashion. Costly as they may be, public perception of reports by big names does give some credibility.

The new administration of the Selangor government is said to be doing just that in its efforts to expose alleged hanky-panky involving public money by its predecessor.
The new chairman of the Port Klang Authority, Datuk Lee Hwa Beng, had also announced that PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ services had been enlisted to ascertain the losses incurred in the Free Trade Zone as well as to apportion blame.

Now, the Tourism Ministry has hired the same auditors to investigate claims of abuse of funds by national tourism promotions company Pempena Sdn Bhd involving millions of ringgit. While these efforts should be applauded, shouldn’t the same be done for other projects which were doomed to fail from the word "Go!"?

The much-touted Forward Training Base in Brickendonbury in North London is a typical example. Budgeted as a RM490 million project, it involved expenditure like architects’ fees, etc. But it is public knowledge that much more than what was needed was spent, including "advance payments" to third parties, not taking into account the countless unnecessary visits by all and sundry – on first class – for "meetings and discussions". And speaking of sport, let’s find out how the National Sports Council ended up on the verge of insolvency, unable to pay its creditors, including athletes’ allowances. Perhaps, one of the firms could do it gratis, as a sporting gesture?

Back to the Tourism Ministry, while it continues to probe its own backyard, another query would be how does spending millions of ringgit to repackage the Cuti-Cuti Malaysia campaign as "Zoom" help to boost tourism? A case of old wine in a new bottle will not benefit the people, but instead tax the government’s already stretched budget.