Assessment of the Practices of Internal Control System in the Public Sectors of Malaysia

This study is an attempt to assess the status of current practices of internal control system among different service schemes of public sector in Malaysia. This study collected primary data based on a set of questionnaire survey among the head of department of 109 departments and agencies under 24 federal ministries including the Prime Minister Department in Malaysia. The data were collected based on the opinion about ten factors of internal control practices in the department or agency by using seven-point Likert scale. The data are analysed under descriptive statistics and factor analysis. Further, the reliability of the data is tested by using Cronbach alpha test, and the validity of data is tested by checking the normality of data through Shapiro Wilk test and graphically. Overall, 86.2% of the respondents mentioned that they practice internal control system in their department. However, the priority of these ten factors of internal control differs among the services schemes. Overall the internal control system of the financial schemes group is strong, but their emphasis on the documentation is at the average level only. However, the internal control in the engineering, information system, education and medical & health schemes are below the overall average internal control score. The public sector in Malaysia needs to focuses more on internal control and its proper assessment system to become a reliable and efficient sector.