Customs shoes were not, um, custom-made, so that’s RM600,000 down the drain
The latest Auditor-General’s report has given a kick in the shins to the Customs Department for destroying 7,659 pairs of new footwear – because the shoes did not fit.
"The sizes... do not fulfil the needs of the officers and sample tests conducted by the Science Technology Research Institute of Defence found that the soles of the shoes have turned brittle and split," it said in the report released in Parliament today.
So that was RM602,089 down the drain, or about RM80 a pair. The shoes were ordered four years ago and the quality of the shoes and boots degraded after being kept in the Customs store for three years.
The footwear was part of the department's uniform, distributed to staff. Each person gets two pairs of shoes before the end of April every year. Between 2009 and 2013, Customs forked out RM6.86 million for footwear but clearly did not distribute it.
The Auditor-General also criticised the way police manage their assets. It noted that the police lost equipment worth RM1.3 million between 2010 and last year, and this included 156 handcuffs, 44 firearms and 29 vehicles.
The report pointed out that police personnel were late in reporting the missing items to department heads and that the police took their own time for follow-up action. – October 1, 2013.
