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In the judicial system worldwide, especially in criminal proceedings, we have to swear to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. My column this week will focus on speaking and telling of this “truth and nothing but the truth”.

How does one decide if one is living in a truthful culture or within a truthful organisation? Leadership is the lid that defines all such organisations. And organisational culture is the not-so-visible but believed and adhered-to symbols, features, and conduct of members which explain each organisation and its culture.

Let me consider and describe one in which I am a member. It is one of the more premier and prestigious clubs in the country, and I have been a member for about 40 years.

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Recently, we had a serious but real accounting and governance problem facing this club. For two consecutive years, our public auditors have not been able to “give a clean bill on our accounts and reporting”. Therefore, at the AGM it was moved that a three-person special committee with experienced members be formed to study and report on the problem.

That agenda has since grown into a fuller study group when the full extent of the problem was finally understood and better appreciated. The depth and complexity of the problem under investigation snowballed into another five-person special house committee with the help of a professional consulting firm to discover the real status and actual problems. The resulting report was recently tabled to an EGM of members and that report stated:

“Significant issues and shortcomings exist within the governance and control environment within the club. These have directly contributed to the issues encountered in respect of the club’s operations and the qualified audit opinions issued in respect of the financial statements.”

In summary, clear and actual figures were given for the accumulated losses which run into more than RM3.6 million. Although ours is not as big as the RM2.6 billion fiasco, the concern of all Malaysians; I think we can understand the national problem from some of our lessons learnt.

Culture of truth-telling?

My question to all of us who are educated, and have worked in some professional capacity in any line of work, and if we are at least 50 years of age is this: When you read a first paragraph summary like the above, do you think it is already a culture of truth-telling and do we know the whole truth about such a phenomenon when these words are the written and expressed as the problem?

Please forget that the unit of analysis is our club or any other club in Malaysia; what would your professional view about those words be?

I therefore want to draw a conclusion that most organisational cultures in the East; with very few exceptions, do not usually tell the truth, the whole truth about any actual happening on the ground, even when most of the facts are known and publicly admitted in the social discourse. Why?

My conclusion is that in the minds and hearts of the listeners, and the speakers, we have to protect and preserve the face of the people responsible for any such apparent wrong-doing.

Sure, and given the fact the even modern CSI-forensic science would never speak with 100 percent confidence but with probabilities and usually at the 95 percent level significance, is it not strange that we all accept this ‘lack of truths speaking’, as part and parcel of life in our culture. Again, why?

To me, what is even worse is that our so-called professionals who perform financial and management audits, whose activities should always include the core issue of poor governance and lack of good oversight, do not explicitly state and clarify such weaknesses early on as ‘warning signals’, for such bad weather ahead. Again, why?

There is really no need to protect and preserve the ‘face of the managerial cadre’, only because they are the managerial decision-makers for reappointment of auditors. Managers are always given the opportunity to table their views and response at the general meeting, or board meeting of owners.

In any club, or in most public organidations, the ultimate owners are always the members, and in the current age of social media which enables so much transparency and openness; the auditor’s ‘closing one eye’ on matters of concern is to their own detriment.

Speaking the whole truth

How then does any audit report speak and tell the whole truth? Should they name names and give full details of the forensic evidence ‘dug out through the after-the-fact audit?’ Maybe, what is forgotten usually is that the annual general meeting is still the legitimate and ultimate authority on all matters related to the particular organisation within their parameters of operation according to the organisation’s constitution.

They are no other external authorities than the AGM for whatever internal truth matters of any organisation; the truth and the whole truth must therefore be declared. If it is not, using whatever excuses is not acceptable, as it befalls upon the AGM and its appointed managers to decide if and whether these ‘incomplete but evident factors need to made into a criminal matter of further investigation’.

Therefore, whether in a club AGM like ours, or in the parliamentary dessions as in a nation-state, truth-telling and truth seeking and an obvious intolerance of wrongdoing must become evident to all.

Therefore, as with our club, so with our Parliament and the Budget speech, I find it totally unacceptable that the Malaysian finance minister did not address at all the matter of greatest concern to all Malaysians in the budget – where did our RM2.6 billion go?

What is even more insulting for all rakyat of Malaysia is that not even one sentence was allocated to address this issue which has become the butt and joke of the century regarding the wealth of the rich son of a poor former prime minister. This column is my personal protest about such a matter of truth and my declaration on the necessity for the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

May the Good Lord lead and guide the current finance minister to resign, as he should, for lack of openness and transparency in addressing this truth and whole truth about the RM2.6 billion. Shame on you, Mr Finance Minister of Malaysia.