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Extracts from a Straits Times report:
Many lapses can be avoided if the approving authorities are more rigorous in their scrutiny and ask the pertinent, if inconvenient, questions. [As a result of the lapses, there is] little or no assurance of value for money in projects carried out.
- Auditor General Lim Soo Ping.
THE Auditor-General (AG) has chided civil servants for being sloppy in their management of public funds. He accuses them of tending to opt for what is convenient administratively over financial prudence and being lax in enforcing penalties and other contractual rights.
One government agency whose slip-ups are particularly costly is regulator Media Development Authority (MDA).
Its lapses, which filled nine pages of a 40-page report released by the A-G on Tuesday, included failing to collect an estimated $9.89 million in revenue. The sum was from 46 films in which it invested and which were screened, some as long ago as 4-1/2 years. In addition, the MDA did not review whether these projects met such objectives as creating jobs for Singaporeans.
Read the full report here.