PUTRAJAYA, Feb 16 — The National Audit Department does not set a period for ministries or departments to follow up on audit issues because it is complicated, involves various parties, and is time-consuming, says Auditor-General Datuk Seri Nik Azman Nik Abdul Majid.

He said that government affairs involved various parties and not only the ministry in question, hence delaying the process.

"We (audit) caution a particular ministry but this ministry depends on other ministries, so it cannot finish (the process) until that other ministry has settled it first.

"There is also a restructuring of ministries and when there is a Cabinet reshuffle, the components are moved to other ministries so that is also among the things that cause delays,” he said during a media briefing on the Auditor General’s Report for the Year 2021 Series 2 here, today.

He gave the example of an outstanding issue since 2016 involving the Ministry of Transport over compensation claims by a third party concerning the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2).

According to Nik Azman, the issue was still under negotiation between the ministry and the party involved, and the issue was continuously monitored by the audit follow-up department because it involved high-cost implications for the government.

He said the land compensation issue with regard to the Penang Second Bridge has also been pending since 2017, and it was taking a long time to resolve as it involved the ministry concerned and the state government.

On the follow-up action to the audit issues found in the Auditor-General’s Reports from the Year 2011-2021 Series 1, Nik Azman said there were a total of 10,910 issues involving the Federal and state levels, of which 93.7 per cent or 10,221 issues had been resolved, while 689 issues were still being worked on.

He said there were three signs displayed beside the issues in the audit report follow-up dashboard, namely red indicating no action, yellow (in action) and green (completed). — Bernama