INVESTIGATIONS were launched into 1,000 government officers over the performance failures reported in the Auditor-General’s reports for the years 2012 to 2018.

Of these, 255 officers were penalised and 604 were cleared of wrongdoing, said Auditor-General Nik Azman Abdul Majid today.

Probes are underway for the remaining 141 officers.

“Sometimes we feel that the punishment imposed by a department (on the offending officers) is soft, but the Audit Department cannot intervene because we only do the audit and look for non-compliance,” he said at a media conference on the Auditor-General’s Report 2018 Series 3. 

Nik Azman said the auditors respected the decisions of the individual departments which had probed the cases.

“The audit department may see the punishment as light but the department could have taken other mitigating factors into consideration when deciding on the penalty.”

He said his department always conducted a follow up audit after the first one to ensure its officers did an ethical job.

The audit department also meets with the police, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and the Public Service Department to set up internal inquiries to identify mistakes, abuse of power or negligence and for appropriate action to be taken. – July 14, 2020.