PUTRAJAYA - The Auditor-General set up a special unit four months ago to conduct spot checks on government agencies and departments to ensure accounts are properly managed.

'We can conduct checks on any department at any time without giving prior notice. This is especially for departments that have not received the accountability index rating for the particular year,' said Auditor-General Tan Sri Ambrin Buang.

'We hope all agencies and departments pay serious attention to managing their accounts,' he told reporters at his office here yesterday.

The unit, headed by former Terengganu state auditor Mohd Nor Hassan, has six officers who will go around the country to conduct surprise checks.

Ambrin said the spot checks would be conducted every time the department received a complaint or a poison letter against some agencies.

However, the spot checks should not be construed as the agencies having elements of corruption, he said.

Meanwhile, the AG's office clarified it was the Federal Government that spent RM537.04mil ($224.64mil) to invest and lend this sum to the US-based Columbia Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation (CAMC) and not the Composites Technology Research (M) Sdn Bhd (CTRM).

Its deputy director-general Datuk Azizah Arshad said it was also the Federal Government that managed to get back RM25mil from the investment.

In an earlier report, Public Accounts Committee chairman Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid was quoted as saying that CTRM had spent RM537.04mil to buy CAMC and when the latter got into financial difficulties, CTRM only got back RM25mil.

Similarly, Azizah clarified that CTRM's investment failure was due to unscrupulous spending by the CAMC senior management officers and not CTRM. -- The Star