KUALA LUMPUR: Several top officials struggled to provide concrete answers to the financial discrepancies highlighted in the third series of the 2013 Auditor-General’s (A-G) report in a meeting with the media yesterday.  Laughter from confused journalists erupted in the hall in Angkasapuri when the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry explained that it had been driven by “kasih” (love) to bypass the official national database to select participants for the RM1.3 billion 1Azam poverty eradication programme.

The report, which was released on Monday, found that the programme’s failure to select participants through the eKasih database had resulted in the non-participation of the poor and hard-core poor.

“We admit that there were participants who did not join the programme through the eKasih system,” said Datuk Sabariah Hassan, the ministry’s secretary-general. “But at the same time, through that programme, we ‘kasihkan’ (poured our love) on them. In the Women’s Ministry, there are 55 assistants who fall into the hard-core poor category, so we chose them ourselves and we ‘kasihkan’ them in this programme.”

Sabariah’s reply prompted one reporter to ask if the participants had not been “loved” enough by the ministry, given that less than half were able to add RM300 to their monthly household income. “We have provided them with training, help in terms of materials, support ... but they have to make an effort themselves. If they don’t make any effort, they won’t achieve any results,” said Sabariah.

The report said that only 49.82% of 265 participants interviewed said they were able to increase their household income by RM300, which was the ministry’s target. The programme is implemented by the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, the Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry Ministry, Sabah’s Agriculture and Food Industry Ministry and Sarawak’s Welfare, Women and Family Development Ministry.

The secretary-general of the Agriculture Ministry Datuk Mohd Arif Ab Rahman said there is “nothing we can do” about the participants who fail to take advantage of the aid given to them. Arif also refused to answer a question from the media on the controversial National Feedlot Corp (NFCorp) scandal, saying that he believed the case was closed.

As at September this year, NFCorp had repaid only RM34.98 million of its RM250 million loan for the cattle rearing project. Repayments for this year have yet to start, prompting Putrajaya to take legal action against the company.

Datuk Seri Khalid Shariff, the secretary-general of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, told the media that his staff could not yet do anything about the 121,664 unsettled traffic summonses issued to foreign vehicles, as stated in the report. He said they could only wait for the RM30 million automated number plate recognition system to be implemented, although he did not reveal when this would happen. The report had found that RM7.63 million worth of traffic summonses were left unpaid.

When grilled on the nearly RM12 million in pensions paid to deceased retired military personnel, Defence Ministry secretary-general Datuk Seri Dr Ismail Ahmad vowed that his staff “would improve”.

This pledge was repeated by senior officials from the Education Ministry, the Tourism and Culture Ministry, and the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia when discrepancies in their ministries were brought up in the townhall session, while  Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Ali Hamsa urged the media to highlight “positive” aspects of the  report rather than focusing on the millions of public funds lost each year.  — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on November 13, 2014.