HAPPINESS, to the people of the old Soviet Union, was when the KGB knocked on their neighbour’s door.
Happiness, for Malaysians, is when the Auditor General’s Report is all praises for the public sector, from ministries to government-linked companies (GLCs) to state-owned enterprises.
If the past reports are of any guide, we will be denied happiness year after year.
The situation was so bad in 2016 that Transparency International Malaysia (TIM) was compelled to issue a media statement expressing its concern about leakages and fraud.
In 2016, then auditor general, Tan Sri Ambrin Buang, had issued a statement saying government agencies had recovered RM2 billion in follow-up actions after audits were conducted by his department.
Governance failure is a bad habit in the public sector, and as bad habits go, they die hard.
But here is a question: why do they wait for the auditor general to point out the flaws?
One answer is that they think that it is the job of the auditors to do so. This is a pathetic attitude, coming as it does from the government agencies’ leaders and managers.
To them we say this: audit reports are narratives of the past, of which nothing much can be done except to use them as lessons learnt.
Ethical leaders and managers will never allow public funds to go to waste, let alone to line their pockets.
Professor Roselina Ahmad Saufi, vice-chancellor and chief executive officer of International University Malaya-Wales, asked the question of all questions in her op-ed on corporate failure in Business Times on Sept 2: Are we selecting leaders who are worthy of the trust we invest in them? Evidently not.
The Auditor General’s Report, year after year, points to square pegs in round holes. Putrajaya and its equivalent in the states will do well to begin with this question. Only then can they get to the heart of darkness.
Harsh phrase, but it is true. Roselina is right. Integrity — in the public or private sector — isn’t about having perfect oversight systems, but about leaders who choose to do the right thing even when no one is watching.
Or to quote TIM’s media statement, ethical leadership is about setting the right tone at the top rather than having a compliance framework.
For sure, oversight mechanisms do play an important role, but errant leaders will override them. So will they their internal auditors’ findings.
It is hard to come up with independent internal auditors’ reports when wastage, leakages and stalled projects are laid at their feet.
Internal auditors’ have a frequent lament: revisions, revisions and revisions.
Here is a piece of advice from Roselina: “Every chief executive officer, every board chairman and every minister overseeing government-linked companies must understand that they, not external reviewers, are the guardians of their organisation’s integrity.”
To her, every major corporate failure represents a choice, a decision by people in positions of trust to prioritise personal gain over fiduciary duty. We can’t agree more.
Selection criterion for ethical leaders? Look for the one with a moral compass that points to the true North.
Anything less will be to further drain the Treasury’s coffers, leading to a very taxing problem for Putrajaya and the people.
© New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd
