FEB 26 — Here’s the government agency we really need, the “Simply Put” agency.

To fight the country’s deadly epidemic, garble. Which pads poor, probably criminal, deeds with complexities, data, updates, timelines, decimal points and acronyms. 

As it is, the landscape’s littered with promises of action, study, research or review.

The Auditor-General’s Report 1/2026 on the 2024 Federal Agencies’ Financial Statements had issues with my university, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). 

Dewan Rakyat talked about it this week, and the Deputy Minister Adam Adli — himself in another lifetime experienced serious disagreements with university administrators — assured a degree of action, study, research and review. 

Apparently, a cooperative was collecting fees and receiving other payments for services the university ultimately provided. And then the university was shortchanged by about RM50 million as reported inside the auditor’s findings.

It involved the Master of Education (SPEND) and Postgraduate Diploma in Education (DPLI) programmes.

The payments originated from the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) and Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF). These are postgraduate programmes, the students seem to take loans from the national fund or use up their retirement benefits. An investment into their future. It also tells us these students are Malaysians.

Now the question which was never entertained.

The university teaches, supervises and hands out the certificates on the stage at DECTAR (Dewan Canselor Tun Abdul Razak), why did it not just handle fee payments directly?

Why the middle man, this cooperative? This Koperasi B-5-1788? Only belatedly the public is informed that the operating name is Koperasi Siswazah Bangi Bhd (KSBB).

KSBB manager Muhammad Hafiz Md Saad said the 2017 initiated partnership has since generated RM90.56 million in revenue. For the university or the company?

By the lack of funds funnelled back to the university it appears the company gets the better end of the deal. 

The full report must have mesmerised the minders at the higher education ministry since the deputy minister told Dewan Rakyat UKM won’t use KSBB to collect fees anymore. In fact, the university has started to—in stages—collect the fees directly since last year.

This before any mention of five university employees on the cooperative’s board as chairman, secretary and treasurer. No report of university staff members moonlighting in the cooperative’s janitorial services. 

Nor that the finance ministry never approved the wonderful relationship since 2017, which renders the whole enterprise a non-starter. 

If the auditor-general did not report these discrepancies, what is the chance the relationship with Koperasi B-5-1788 AKA Koperasi Siswazah Bangi Bhd (KSBB) would not have gone on swimmingly well till 2037?

It was not like UKM Treasury Department was livid and banging on KSBB’s door every other Wednesday to collect arrears. And this at a time where all public universities scramble for funds to keep the lights on since Putrajaya is not shovelling more money their way. 

The whole UKM ecology which includes KSBB was in Zen harmony until the auditor-general probably flagged it to UKM treasury last year before the submission to Parliament this week. 

Be mindful that the auditor-general’s report a year ago flagged about the non-functioning RM22 million radiotherapy machine at UKM’s hospital [Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz (HCTM)] due to an incompetent supplier. Twenty cancer patients were affected by the non-availability.

UKM is in its own world of mess.

When the information is gift-wrapped already, the decisions are easy. Except this is still Malaysia. Suspensions and terminations of individuals are yet forthcoming.

The auditors are coming, in a bus

It is thankless, auditing the Malaysian government.

Along with the agency to say it simply, we need another to keep track of every impropriety, so that it is not lost in the mist of time.

Every auditor-general report is filled with gems — OK, horror stories. The reaction? Outcries, expected denials and conciliatory statements.

However, no registrar of which reports have been resolved.

So, one agency to explain to us plainly, and another to keep score of eventual outcomes, no matter how long it takes to get a sensible resolution.

It is a huge win when the auditor-general unearths mistakes because the office cannot possibly track everything. 

It is a RM400 billion budget for Malaysia these days, with ministries, agencies, departments, boards, commissions, authorities and regulators from Padang Besar to Semporna.

It chooses to sample based on high-risk, high value and a history of transgressions. It cannot look everywhere. If UKM is looked at, then x-number of the other twenty-one public universities get a no look this time.

If the auditor-general had to peruse all financial activities conducted by the government throughout the year with a fine-tooth comb, most of its staff will probably quit or die of aneurysms. 

They carefully choose where to look. They track down the financial information and act like detectives, without the glamourous cars, casino trips and tuxedos, to figure it out. It’s not easy to reconstruct the past using only numbers. 

They do, these superheroes.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.