THE Public Account Committee’s (PAC) proceedings on the auditor-general’s findings on procurement and processes can only begin after the appointment of new members, said new chairman Wong Kah Woh.

He hopes that members will be appointed at the next sitting in November so that the committee can start its scrutiny.

“As the members have yet to be appointed, our proceedings can only start earliest in November when Parliament sits. 

“I hope the appointment can be done on day one of the session and we could then plan the schedule,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

There are three outstanding auditor-general reports that PAC has yet to look into. These are the series 2 and 3 of the 2018 report and series 1 of 2019.

“The previous PAC committee discussed matters to be investigated further.

“Our priority now is to settle the old cases where reports are pending. Then we will open up new proceedings for the three AG reports.”

There are also three PAC reports due for tabling, Wong said, but the PAC’s incapacitation could delay them as well.

One is the PAC’s report on the Transport Ministry’s vehicle-entry permit and road-charges system project, for which housekeeping meetings were done on February 10 and 11, while the verification meeting was held on March 9.

Two other reports are on the Perlis sports school under the Education Ministry and land transactions involving Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL), both of which have had housekeeping meetings but not verification meetings.

The Perils sports school report examines why there was a six-year delay building the facility, while the report on DBKL involves dubious transactions.

There are also draft PAC reports the committee has yet to finalise as of July this year.

These include a report on the management of foreign workers by the Home Ministry and Immigration Department, another report on the Education Malaysia Global Services (EMGS) under the Education Ministry, and a report on the Finance Ministry’s response to the PAC’s recommendations on the RM19.4billion GST refunds.

On August 18, Wong already anticipated the delay to be caused to the PAC’s work.

At a press conference at the Parliament lobby, he said the appointments of new PAC members will most likely be pushed to the November sitting.

“And this is what happened now,” he said.

The Ipoh Timur MP was elevated to PAC chairman on August 27, after having served as deputy.

He took over from Dr Noraini Ahmad, who resigned on March 10 after being appointed as higher education minister, following the change in government in late February.

Azizah Mohd Dun (BN-Beaufort) is the new deputy chairman.

PAC’s proceedings have stopped since March after five of its members became ministers.

Auditor-General Nik Azman Nik Abdul Majid said on July 14 in conjunction with the release of the series 3/2018 report that the tabling was delayed due to the postponement of the Dewan Rakyat sitting and enforcement of the movement-control order.

The report was initially supposed to be tabled in March.

He added that the department could not brief the PAC on its findings as the chairman and members of the committee have yet to be appointed. – September 7, 2020.