The 1985 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service

CITATION for Tan Sri Ahmad Noordin
Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremonies
31 August 1985, Manila, Philippines

Any government whose funds are chronically inadequate must ensure their appropriate and efficient use. Waste and corruption are a curse that cripples most newly independent countries, and ineffective fiscal accountability is an international problem. Yet the task of holding government departments accountable often devolves upon an auditor, whose office is a bureaucratic backwater with limited mandate, and whose reports are ignored.

Such was the situation in Malaysia until May 1976 when TAN SRI AHMAD NOORDIN, already extended beyond normal retirement as Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, became Auditor- General. His was a surprise appointment: he lacked a university degree and was the first to be selected from outside the Audit Department.

NOORDIN was born February 18,1921, in a small kampong (village) in the northeastern state of Kelantan, into a traditional Islamic family. His education began in a rural Malay school and continued in a government English school until halted by Japanese occupation of the peninsula in 1941. After World War II, while supporting a family as a clerk in the Price Control Office, he studied nights and weekends. In 1947 he passed the Cambridge School Certificate Examination which enabled him to join the Kelantan State Civil Service. Eight years later, just before Malaysia became independent from Britain, he entered the Federal Civil Service and earned distinction in successive posts for his searching mind, capacity for innovation, integrity and hard work.

With his appointment as Auditor-General nine years ago, NOORDIN began to make an indelible mark on government. The law requiring a report on the accuracy of state and federal accounts he found too narrow. Declaring "my clarion call is to propagate the concept of public accountability," he persuaded parliament to amend the Audit Act of 1957, thus enabling his office to ascertain whether funds were actually used as appropriated and managed efficiently.

Concentrating upon performance auditing, NOORDIN shattered the complacency of bureaucrats and politicians. His first audit in 1977 uncovered abuses ranging from procurement of much overpriced noodles by the army, to discrepancies in Ministry of Education grants totaling nearly US$35 million. But the role of an auditor, he believes, is to "analyze the weaknesses which give rise to such faults, and secure cooperation of the heads of the audited organizations to rectify them and to strengthen their internal controls in order to prevent recurrence."

In 1982 Malaysia was rocked by a scandal involving almost US$1 billion in bad loans by the Hong Kong subsidiary of the state-owned Bank Bumiputra. Public doubt of the government's ability to investigate its own financial institution was met by appointment of a three-member special committee of inquiry with NOORDIN as chairman. Its blunt, extensively documented findings made NOORDIN and his colleagues folk heroes and restored faith in the national banking system.

NOORDIN is guided by deep moral convictions that began with his rural village family life and religious training. He believes that, depending upon their talents, all human beings have something to contribute to society, first by doing their own work well. He states that one becomes a sinner against society by giving in to pressure by influential figures, rather than protecting the rights of the powerless. "A career in public service," he says, "should be viewed as more than earning a living. A public servant must recognize social injustice, and work towards reducing it with courage and determination."

Modest in manner and lifestyle, NOORDIN has shown that a devoted civil servant, through his strength of character and excellence of performance, can restore confidence in government. In the process he has lent added impetus to Malaysia's exceptionally rapid economic progress.

In electing TAN SRI AHMAD NOORDIN BIN HAJI ZAKARIA to receive the 1985 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes his effective, fearless exposure of inefficiency and corruption in government, making a reality of public accountability.