‘Subpoenaed to attend TH RCI, but told to go home’ – Madinah

‘Subpoenaed to attend TH RCI, but told to go home’ – Madinah

KUALA LUMPUR: Former auditor general Tan Sri Dr Madinah Mohamad has defended her attendance at the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into Lembaga Tabung Haji (TH), saying she was there after receiving a subpoena but was later told to go home without being called to give evidence.

“I attended the proceedings because I had received a subpoena, but was told to go home without being called to give evidence before the RCI on the date they had set,” she said when contacted.

Madinah said claims made by TH chairman Tan Sri Rashid Hussain, who is also an RCI member, regarding her attendance at the proceedings were inaccurate.

She said she had never asked to enter the RCI hearing room with then National Audit Department Financial Audit Division deputy director Dr Mona Othman.

Instead, she said Mona was with her outside the hearing room at the time to “stand by” in case any additional technical information concerning TH was required.

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“The statement is inaccurate because I never asked to attend the proceedings with Mona. She was only ‘on standby’ outside in case there were questions of a technical nature.

“I never asked to enter the hearing room with Mona. At the time, a member of the secretariat came out of the hearing room and informed me that I did not need to enter and asked me to go home.

“If it was true that Mona could not be brought in, why wasn’t I informed and why was I the only one told to go home? When I asked why, the person said they were not sure,” she said.

Madinah also confirmed that she had received a subpoena to give evidence before the RCI and attended the proceedings on June 3, 2022, on that basis.

On the opportunity given by the RCI for her to submit written answers to 75 questions, Madinah stressed that written responses could not replace oral testimony.

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“I did submit an affidavit, but it cannot replace oral testimony. They need to hear what I have to say,” she said.

Madinah was previously reported as saying that the RM4.8 billion discrepancy between the National Audit Department’s findings and PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) assessment of TH was not evidence of any failure by the department, but should be understood in the context of differences in mandates, scope, reference periods and valuation methods.

She said the findings did not mean the National Audit Department had overlooked losses or that PwC had overvalued them. Instead, different figures could arise when different valuation bases were used.

She said the National Audit Department conducted its audit based on its statutory mandate, as well as the laws and accounting standards in force when the financial statements were prepared.

“For this reason, it is not appropriate to immediately conclude that the discrepancy undermines the credibility of the National Audit Department or that all audits previously conducted by the department should be called into question.

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“Audit work must be assessed based on the laws, mandate and standards in force at the time it was carried out. It is inappropriate to assess a previous audit using standards or approaches that emerged later,” she said.