KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 9): Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim wants federal statutory bodies to adopt a paradigm shift and be more transparent by reviewing the structure and vision of their respective establishments and refrain from taking action that contradicts good governance.

He said that although the federal statutory bodies have shown a positive performance overall, there is still room for improvement to ensure they do not deviate from their original objectives.

For example, he said that based on a report received from Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, an agency established to help the poor was found to have 79 subsidiaries that had nothing to do with the original purpose of its establishment.

“Of the total, 50 of these subsidiaries suffered losses but their board of directors (BOD) chairmen still receive fixed allowances.

“Say a BOD chairman receives a fixed monthly allowance of RM5,000 or a minimum of RM1,000. If he chairs the BOD of all 79 subsidiaries, he could easily get a minimum of RM79,000 a month,” Anwar said when launching the Guidelines on the Management and Governance of Federal Statutory Bodies here on Friday.

The prime minister said some may claim that this happened because the chairman was appointed from among politicians, but he believes that a failure in governance and violations can be committed by anyone.

“It is the same thing among the professionals too. They can be professional cheaters.

“We just need those who were appointed, either politicians, professionals or civil servants, to follow the rules and be monitored more closely, especially by representatives of the Ministry of Finance and the auditor general and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC),” he said.

Accordingly, Anwar said he wants the MACC and the auditor general to be stricter with all agencies and federal statutory bodies to avoid violations of governance and corruption.

He said the government will also look into the possibility of providing additional allocations to expand the audit monitoring mechanism to all levels, ie federal, state and local authorities.

Anwar said this is to ensure that the operations of government agencies or statutory bodies are more transparent, to avoid corruption and acts of profit-making.

“These agencies are important to generate economic growth, especially those established to help Bumiputera, but the violation of regulations and the tendency to make excessive profits cause the rights and interests of Bumiputera to be betrayed, and this is what we are worried about,” he said.

Meanwhile, the launch of the guidelines on Friday was meant to provide an instrument and framework for the governance ecosystem related to federal statutory bodies.

Among other matters, it also emphasises the empowerment of the role of Internal Audit as a whole at the statutory body level, including their subsidiaries and corporations.

Also present at the event were Public Services director general Datuk Seri Wan Ahmad Dahlan Abdul Aziz,  Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner Tan Sri Azam Baki, Auditor General Datuk Wan Suraya Wan Mohd Radzi, and Implementation Coordination Unit (ICU) director general Datuk Seri Azman Ibrahim.

https://www.theedgemarkets.com/node/722267