Now you don't see, Now you see ... MACC battle call
Despite many political propaganda and event happening, the big story getting the peoples' attention has to be the corruption charges against Dato Seri Dr Khir Toyo for properties fraud. Read our yesterday posting here.
Immediately the opposition propaganda machine is on full blast to negate it as only a whitewash. Malaysia Waves aka Rahman Celcom described it as play acting. Faekah Husin, the most talkative political secretary said the same. So does Nik Nazmi.
PAS Vice President, Salahuddin Ayub was reported in Harakah claiming the case will disappear in the same manner Mr Clean Tun Abdullah arrested Eric Chia dan Kasitah Gadam, but many high profile cases are dropped during elections.
Harakah gave a catchy headline "Khir Toyo hanya 1% dari kes jerung." Anwar posted that report on his blog here. It did not completely consider all the factors and issues, but it is fair comment for an opposition.
The thing is while women can fake it to make the partner (or in some weird cases, the audience) feel good and masculinely accomplished, not the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
ACCA 2008
Since Parliament passed the new Anti Corruption Commission Act 2008, the former National Bureau of Investigation (or the Malay acronym BPN or before that BPR) cease and is replaced by MACC begining on January 1st 2009.
MACC is modeled after the successful Hong Hong's ICAC model. With it's new structure as a Commission, MACC is answerable to the public via Parliament.
It is structured under the Prime Minister's Department for financial and manpower administration BUT not the operation. The current Minister in charge is Dato Nazri Aziz.
Yes, yes ... I know, I know you wanna hear about the 3 or 4,000 taxi permits. Do hear me out. You sure like to know when MACC can't get any orgasm.
Believe me, MACC is now free from political and Governmental intervention. They can't fake it anymore.
Not even, when it doesn't make sense to charge Dato Mirza of Tourism Ministry the second time after he was acquited in the first time and it is a major embarassment to lose again. The process has to take place.
In the past, BPR and BPN is responsible and answerable to the respective Minister. It allows room for doubts. This time around as a Commission, they have to answer to the people.
Commitees and Panels
The policies, operations and reports of MACC have to undergo five tough and scrutinising panels or committees with representatives from Parliament and public. They consist of 42 respected individuals with the integrity and capability to monitor and ensure MACC do their job free, transparently and professionally.
The members include former Lord Presidents, former judges, former Goverment Chief Auditor, corporate personalities, NGOs, lawyers, former Government civil servants, academics, and professionals.
No Ministers are involved!
Before one claim they are Government appointees and will suck up to Government, few notables are worth mentioning.
Tan Sri Robert Tan is a member of the Consultation and Corruption Prevention Panel who has been raising issues publicly on Anwar's black eye, Tan Sri Tajuddin Ramli's alleged debacle in MAS, and other issues played up well by Malaysia Today.
There is Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam there also, and he has been very vocal lately. He is former President of Transparency International.
Their panel deal with preventive measures.
There is the Anti-Corruption Advisory Board whose role is to advise the Commission on any aspect of the corruption problem in Malaysia and on policies and strategies.
The Board scrutinize and endorse proposals and resources requirement from the Commission towards the efficient and effective running of the Commission.
It scrutinize and submit along comments on the Annual Report of the Commission which is to be submitted to the Special Committee on Corruption.
The Special Committee involved three BN representative, one from PKR, one from PAS and one from DAP. No issue of a side dominating. Their role is advise the Prime Minister on any aspect of the corruption problem in Malaysia.
It is done by scrutinising the submitted Annual Report and the attached comments from the Advisory Board. The Annual Report and comments are publicly available. Last year's report is the one in orange in the above picture.
Check on Salahuddin Ayub, if he had raised what he said in Harakah in the Special Committee meeting.
There is a Complaint Committee headed by former Court of Appeal judge, Dato Mohd Nor Abdullah to address non criminal complaint from the public against MACC employees and make recommendation if it relates to weakness in procedures.
The members are two former high Government officials and two notable lawyers.
In this regard, MACC does not have the options to select what and who to investigate because they have to investigate all complaints. All is tabled to the committee and progress is monitored. There is a 2 weeks to 6 months deadline to complete investigation.
The Operation Review Panel is established to ensure transparency and responsibility in all investigations done by MACC.
The progress of all investigation is monitored closely. For cases exceeding 12 months investigation, MACC have to submit to the panel to explain the delay. No investigation can be stopped without the panel scrutiny and approval.
When there is case, MACC has to submit to the case to the prosecutor, be it Dato Mirza or not. In fact, there is a pending case of a subordinate investigating officer suing his superior for not pushing his investigated file for prosecution.
There is all together 8 term of references for this panel.
The panel is headed by a former Government Chief Auditor, Tan Sri Datuk Hadenan Abdul Jalil. Presidents of Malaysian Institute of Accountant and Institute of Internal Auditors are represented. There is an expert in forensic accounting, Prof Dr Syed Noh bin Syed Ahmad from UiTM.
There is one member of an opposition party in there this blogger know off. No crap there. He will leak it if there is hanky panky.
And no question of an opportunist member dominating there.
Look up the MACC official website here for more details.
Investigators, Prosecutors, and Judges
MACC has extraordinary powers and is independent. They can and have in the past called in Ministers, Menteri Besar, and even Prime Minister for investigation.
However, MACC has no prosecuting power. That is left to Attorney General office and they have an office for corruption cases within reach of the MACC premises.
This can be a source of stumbling block and turn-off for MACC from the orgasmic sensation of seeing their investigation ends with a conviction.
However, the practise to separate these two roles is essential and justifiable. The one doing investigation should not be the one prosecuting. Too much power will be vested with MACC. There is also the issue of objectivity in the legal interpretation.
That is something to improve on the part of MACC. They desperately need more manpower and trained personnel.
The current workforce of 2,500 is not sufficient when considering Government servants is 1.2 million. That is a ratio of 1:480 and the bigger private sector is not taken into account.
Another comparison, there is 100,000 police force.
Aside from the occasional differences with AG office which has vastly improved since, there is the issue with the judges.
Judges are not accepting sworn statements as evidences. This made life difficult for MACC and 50% of cases with witness sworn statements get thrown out.
The reason being almost all corruption involves hostile witness. Witness or recipients of bribes are usually people who are close to the defendants. Seldom the recipients do not realise they had taken bribes.
Damn to those so-called human rights activist who see ensuring the corrupt not send to the slammer more important the menace of corruption that affects more people. One can find most of them in the opposition or opposition sympathisers.
The same side making political investment to ensure BN will remain to be seen as a corrupt party even if they had cleaned up their act.
The propaganda by opposition, especially the case of Teoh Beng Hock death, seemed to have psyched out judges. Many lawyers and prosecutors complaint that judges fear making unfavourable judgements against opposition for fear of the bad publicity.
Not to mention, there are those politically bias Bar Council member lawyers and closet opposition judges.
Judges are still human too.
Points to Ponder
Nevertheless, MACC did fairly well. They receive 6,000 complaints and 1,000 have cases. There have been 700 arrest and 68% chances of conviction.
The complaint is no big fish caught.
Certainly the procedures and method of getting sworn statements must be improved and made legally acceptable to get those big fishes. Otherwise, no one will fear MACC. As one chap whose name appeared in the PKFZ case said, "Apa takut, SPRM selalu kalah."
On Salahuddin Ayub long standing allegations against MAS and now being taken up by Tan Sri Robert Phang, tak faham ke? The report and investigation was done at the police, thus it is off for MACC. No civil service in the world consciously do duplicating work.
A rebuttal question:
How did Salahuddin Ayub and Malaysia Today came up with RM8 billion number on MAS?
This blogger has a summary of accounts from 1993 to 2009 and keeps KLSE handbooks from the years before MAS's Tengku Azmil first ejaculated. At RM8 billion, it is irreconcilable.
Don't tell me it came from some nutty Aeronautical Engineer living in Sungai Buloh. Our suspicion it is lawyer on the panel of MAS that is over charging and abusing the company's expense account.
Lastly, something worth pondering. There must be some political reform done to address political corruption.
No blame game. Yes it is prevalent in UMNO or BN.
Why are PAS Pak Lebai from Kelantan to Selangor also doing it, even how Arabic they try to justify? Kelantan only gain prominence after 2008 but Selangor, Kedah and Penang PAS are fast learners.
Corruption channeled in and out of DAP's party account have been happening long before the death of Teoh Beng Hock. Ronny Liew is likely to be on deck to be charged by MACC after Khir Toyo.
PKR are equally as experts as UMNO. No need to say more. Anwar was the Father of Money Politics in UMNO.
There should be a reform to political financing. For instance, how about the Federal Government fund elections? That way there is no more issue of collecting political fund to finance elections. Letih businessmen.
On political donations to finance political events and programs, lets not be hypocritical. Legalise it. Make it transparent. More lenient tax breaks.
Why try to kid ourselves? Politics need money to operate on. Perjuangan and semangat alone are not enough.
Finally, corruption involves giver and taker. Why only go after the recipients?
After a while, it is beginning to be racial. Majority of those kena are Melayu because the most occurence of corruption is in the Government services and that is where most Melayus are.
Such one-sidedness has turned it into a stereotype that Melayu are naturally corrupt. Having read Sterling Seagrave's Lord of the Rim, one beg to differ violently.
For 1Malaysia sake and to depict a better balance of reality, go after those taukeh giving bribes to get things done their way, fast and by-pass bureaucrasy.
That is the Adam before Eve.
9 comments:
Salam : Just to divert from the main topic. Have anyone ever wondered how much are those consultant that prepared the New Economic Model paid and who really did the job? If this is supposed to be the document that will "GPS" our economic growth in next 5-10 years, there is nothing to shout about. It is just a document fit only for "ribbon cutting ceremony" and nothing else to shout about..rojak and garbage in and out. Tertipu lagi...
The biggest shark is the one claiming he was conspired against in a sodomy case when he actually did sodomise his victim.
Now that shark is trying his best to delay his sodomy case with the support of other prominent gay leaders from overseas.
The general preception is the recipent are the culprit and that had tranish the whole system draging along the keturunan Melayu and thier religon as well.
Would there be taker if there no givers and yet the givers remain respected and hounoured with all the goods in thier favour.
Should MACC just conctrate and intrested in the ,"only the giver" MACC will never discourage corruption in Malaysia.
1sekolah 1bahasa 1Negara
Now that the whistle blower Act is going to be gazetted soon, I hope the long suffering senior officers at EPU come out and expose the extremely corrupt practices of Effendi Norwawi during his tenure as minister at EPU. What a party!
hehehe... sorry bro. It all NATO (No Action Talk Only). Mind you, who pay them??. Nothing free in Malaysia bro. It only another NATO round table. Just leave it to rakyat to judge. UMNO/BN will never ever let the truth come out. They just act and continue to act again. Look at the sodomy case. Always "tunda kes". Hello pal, kalau ada bukti sekali pun, this politicians issue will never end.
ABW!
Thank You for the factual presentation of MACC!
It would be two{2} years come 31/12/10, since the inception of the new MACC, with all the "safeguards", as listed & stated by you, and by all standards MACC has, done quite okay!
MACC is just the investigator , the decision to charge lies with the AG & his chambers!
Then again , as the AG has stated oft times, AG Chambers does not aim for a conviction - it aims to have a proper case, in accordance with the law, before making the decision to charge,as the conviction is dependant on the evidence presented in Court & the Defence - whereupon the Judge will decide.
The problem is we the Rakyaat & critics, seem to always poke some serious jibes at the MACC, even before the case unfolds in court!
To publicly lambast the Khir Toyo matter,is completely jaundiced.
Comparing it to earlier matters & then lambasting , again is a very critical case of jaundice!
And to use the case to gain political mileage, is a very very serious case of contempt{moral}!
The fact that it is Malay or Chinese or Indian or whatever race is again so cockeyed & cataraced, that I believe, many need to have their cataracts removed!
Let the system & the people manning do their work as best as possible and let us all cajol,pujuk & encourage the guys!
Godspeed!
Wonder how Gani Patail looks like when he fake it ?
It's all up to the AG office right ? to prosecute as MACC power is just to investigate.
KHIRTOYO IS CHARGED UNDER THE PENAL CODE WHICH..IF CONVICTED IS WORTH 2 YEARS JAIL TIME. UNDER THE MACC ACT,HIS ASSETS WILL ALSO BE SEQUESTERED. WHY IS HE NOT TRIED UNDER THE MACC ACT.?
Brader Phoneix
I agree to disagree with you but on this one, I fully agree.
Politics should stop encroaching into matters of the court, palace, civil service, and business.
Politicians must provide leadership and ensure principals and policies are adhered to.
Anon 11:00 PM
He can't do it like Meg Ryan but he can pick up few pointers from her :)
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